


Raise Your Hand If You Like to Write

by peccolia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, POV Multiple, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2018-11-06 10:35:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peccolia/pseuds/peccolia
Summary: A collection of various short works based off of tumblr writing prompts and collective ideas, ranging from old grannies and demons to aliens and average and not-so-average day-to-day scenarios. Part of my personal weekly writing exercise initiative.Chapters can be read as standalones, but some are written in installments.(Originally posted on my writing blogeatbreathewrite.tumblr.com)





	1. The Adventures of Todd and Granny, Part I

**writing-prompt-s @ tumblr:**

**An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him. The demon decides to stay at his new home.**

 

* * *

 

 

It isn’t uncommon for this particular demon to be summoned—from exhausting Halloween party pranks in abandoned barns to more legitimate (more exhausting) ceremonies in forests—but it has to admit, this is the first time it’s been called forth from its realm into a claustrophobic living room bathed in the dull orange-pink glow of old glass lamps and a multitude of wide-eyed, creepy antique porcelain dolls that could give Chucky a run for his money with all of their silent, seething stares combined. Accompanying those oddities are tea cup and saucer sets on shelves atop frilly doilies crocheted with the utmost care, and cross-stitched, colorful ‘Home Sweet Home’s hung across the wood-paneled walls.

It’s a mistake—a wrong number, per se. No witch it’s ever known has lived in such an, ah,  _dated,_  home. Furthermore, no practitioner that ever summoned it has been absent, as if they’d up and ding-dong ditched it. No, it didn’t work that way. Not at all. Not if they want to survive the encounter.

It hears the clinking of movement in the room adjacent—the kitchen, going by the pungent, bitter scent of cooled coffee and soggy, sweet sponge cakes, but more jarring is the smell of blood. It moves—feels something slip beneath its clawed foot as it does, and sees a crocheted blanket of whites and greys and deep black yarn, wound intricately, perfectly, into a summoning circle.  _Its_  summoning circle. There is a small splash of bright scarlet and sharp, jagged bits of a broken curio scattered on top, as if someone had dropped it, attempted to pick it up the pieces and pricked their finger. It would explain the blood. And it would explain the demon being brought into this strange place.

As it connects these pieces in its mind, the inhabitant of the house rounds the corner and exits the kitchen, holding a damp, white dish towel close to her hand and fumbling with the beaded bifocals hanging from her neck by a crocheted lanyard before stopping dead in her tracks.

Now, to be fair, the demon wouldn’t ordinarily second guess being face-to-face with a hunchbacked crone with a beaked nose, beady eyes and a peculiar lack of teeth, or a spidery shawl and ankle-length black dress, but there is definitely something amiss here. Especially when the old biddy lets her spectacles fall slack on her bosom and erupts into a wide, toothy (toothless) grin, eyes squinting and crinkling from the sheer effort of it.

“Todd! Todd, dear, I didn’t know you were visiting this year! You didn’t call, you didn’t write—but, oh, I’m so happy you’re here, dear! Would it have been too much to ask you to ring the doorbell? I almost had a heart attack. And don’t worry about the blood, here—I had an accident. My favorite figure toppled off of the table and cleanup didn’t go as expected. But I seem to recall you are quite into the bloodshed and ‘edgy’ stuff these days, so I don’t suppose you mind.” She releases a hearty, kind laugh, but it isn’t mocking, it’s sweet. Grandmotherly. The demon is by no means sentimental or maudlin, but the kindness, the familiarity, the genuine fondness, does pull a few dusty old nostalgic heartstrings. “Imagine if it leaves a scar! It’d be a bit ‘badass,’ as you teenagers say, wouldn’t it?”

She is as blind as a bat without her glasses, it would appear, because the demon is by no means a ‘Todd’ or a human at all, though humanoid, shrouded in sleek, black skin and hard spikes and sharp claws. But the demon humors her, if only because it had been caught off guard.

The old woman smiles still, before turning on her heel and shuffling into the hallway with a stiff gait revealing a poor hip. “Be a dear and make some more coffee, would you please? I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Yes, this is most definitely a mistake. One for the record books, for certain. For late-night trips to bars and conversations with colleagues, while others discuss how many souls they’d swindled in exchange for peanuts, or how many first-borns they’d been pledged for things idiot humans could have gained without divine intervention. Ugh. Sometimes it all just became so pedantic that little detours like this were a blessing—happy accidents, as the humans would say.

That’s why the demon does as asked, and plods slowly into the kitchen, careful to duck low and avoid the top of the doorframe. That’s why it gingerly takes the small glass pot and empties it of old, stale coffee and carefully, so carefully, takes a measuring scoop between its claws and fills the machine with fresh grounds. It’s as the hot water is percolating that the old woman returns, her index finger wrapped tight in a series of beige bandages.

“I’m surprised you’re so tall, Todd! I haven’t seen you since you were at my hip! But your mother mails photos all the time—you do love wearing all black, don’t you?” She takes a seat at the small round table in the corner and taps the glass lid of the cake plate with quaking, unsteady, aged hands. “I was starting to think you’d  _never_ visit. Your father and I have had our disagreements, but…I am glad you’re here, dear. Would you like some cake?” Before the demon has a chance to decline, she lifts the lid and cuts a generous slice from the near-complete circle that has scarcely been touched. It smells of citrus and cream and is, as assumed earlier, soggy, oversaturated with icing.

It was made for a special occasion, for guests, but it doesn’t seem this old woman receives much company in this musty, stagnant house that smells like an antique garage that hadn’t had its dust stirred in years.

Especially not from her absentee grandson, Todd.

The demon waits until the coffee pot is full, and takes two small mugs from the counter, filling them until steam is frothing over the rims. Then, and only then, does it accept the cake and sit, with some difficulty, in a small chair at the small table. It warbles out a polite ‘thank you,’ but it doesn’t suppose the woman understands. Manners are manners regardless.

“Oh, dear, I can hardly understand. Your voice has gotten so deep, just like your grandfather’s was. That, and I do recall you have an affinity for that gravelly, screaming music. Did your voice get strained? It’s alright, dear, I’ll do the talking. You just rest up. The coffee will help soothe.”

The demon merely nods—some communication can be understood without fail—and drinks the coffee and eats the cake with a too-small fork. It’s ordinary, mushy, but delicious because of the intent behind it and the love that must have gone into its creation.

“I hope you enjoyed all of the presents I sent you. You never write back—but I am aware most people use that fancy E-mail these days. I just can’t wrap my head around it. I do wish your mom and dad would visit sometime. I know of a wonderful little café down the street we can go to. I haven’t been; I wanted to visit it with Charles, before he…well.” She falls silent in her rambling, staring into her coffee with a small, melancholy smile. “I can’t believe it’s been ten years. You never had the chance to meet him. But never mind that.” Suddenly, and with surprising speed that has the demon concerned for her well being, she moves to her feet, bracing her hands on the edge of the table. “I may as well give you your birthday present, since you’re here. What timing! I only finished it this morning. I’ll be right back.”

When she returns, the white, grey and black crocheted work with the summoning circle is bundled in her arms.  

“I found these designs in an occult book I borrowed from the library. I thought you’d like them on a nice, warm blanket to fight off the winter chill—I hope you do like it.” With gentle hands, she spreads the blanket over the demon’s broad, spiky back like a shawl, smoothing it over craggy shoulders and patting its arms affectionately. “Happy birthday, Todd, dear.”

Well, that settles it. Whoever, wherever, Todd is, he’s clearly missing out. The demon will just have to be her grandson from now on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)  
>  This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).


	2. The Adventures of Todd and Granny, Part II

**(Alternative series title: “I Saw Granny Ethel with the Devil”)**

**GROCERY STORE**

 

* * *

 

 

Todd the demon is a  _he_ , now, if only because Granny Ethel insists upon using copious ‘ _Dear boy, keep trying_ ’and ‘ _Atta boy!_ ’ critiques to varying degrees depending on how well his needlework, crochet, and knitting attempts progress.

Gender isn’t a concept the demon concerned himself with before. If Todd had been, say, a girl named Tonya, he supposes he’d be a  _she_  instead. If Todd had been gender-neutral and properly communicated with his grandmother, he supposes she would call him  _they_  or  _child_ , appropriately. Granny Ethel isn’t one to discriminate. Even when she properly wears her glasses and sees his obviously un-Todd-like appearance, only shaking her head and smiling with a good-natured “kids these days” on her lips. But he wouldn’t mind if Granny Ethel called him boy, girl, thing, or abomination, so long as she stayed happy.

Granny Ethel is a patient woman. Todd simply can’t understand why or how she’d become the black sheep of her family, especially after a full week of living with her hospitality. Through the constant baked goods and the modest but satisfying three-meals-a-day; the careful (oh-so-careful) dusting of trinkets and bookshelves with tiny cloths and feather dusters not fit for large claws, which  _he_  insists upon doing while she looks on in worry before brewing more coffee; the midday television re-run breaks spent sealing cash donations into envelopes and discussing human rights issues instead of watching old shows, he simply can’t think of her as anything but a paragon of her kind.

It’s a problem with  _them_ , he concludes. Not her.

It isn’t a decision he makes lightly.

Spending such a brief time with her, he’s already learned so much more about humans than he ever would have cared to know, beyond perceiving them as vessels or a means to an end. There is much suffering in the world—sometimes even more than that in Hell—but there is also kindness.

He’s known that, but he witnesses it first hand during their first trip outside of Granny Ethel’s home.

“Come, now, Todd, we have much shopping to do. I’m afraid my pantry isn’t stocked appropriately for the upcoming food donation drive and I can’t just skip it this month.”

Todd remembers addressing an envelope to the local food bank—most people would stop there, figuring their good deed was done.

“I also have to stock up on this week’s groceries. Feel free to buy whatever you want, dear. I can cook anything, you know! At least, I try. I suppose you’d like some snacks, too. But I am  _so_  glad you’re here; think of all the bags we can carry between the two of us!”

There is no car in Granny Ethel’s driveway, or a garage to store it. He wonders how they’re going to make it to the grocery store as he waits for her to lock the door behind them, as she hobbles down the two small concrete steps with her cane in hand.

It isn’t until she’s halfway down the sidewalk that he realizes they’re walking. In public.

An old crone in black and a demon at her side, wearing a handmade shawl so lovingly stitched with various, terrifying occult symbols.

He isn’t the only one who sees a problem with this—the neighbor’s dog, a small, bug-eyed thing, yaps indignantly at them from the front lawn as it bounces around the dewy grass at its owner’s feet, soon erupting in warning yowls and howls, before falling silent mid-yip when Todd locks eyes with it. The neighbor—Maurice, if he remembers Granny Ethel’s gossip correctly—stands frozen, watering can dangling limp from his hand as he overwaters the begonias at his feet, mouth hanging open in undignified disbelief.

“Good morning, Maurice!” Granny Ethel calls with unmitigated cheer, and a hint of pride. “Nice morning, isn’t it? Oh! Have you met my wonderful grandson Todd? He finally came to visit! We’re going shopping now. Will you watch my house?”

Maurice simply stares, dumb with shock.

Halfway down the block, another neighbor’s car brakes with a squeal before they make it out of the driveway and they stick their head out of the window to gape.

Shutters crack open. Curtains are shoved aside.

Before Todd knows it, they are the cul-de-sac’s center of attention.

Granny Ethel doesn’t pay it any mind and continues obliviously on, waving to each face in turn as those faces pale, yet hers remains rosy.

“My, such a busy day today. I haven’t seen everyone out like this since the Fourth of July block party. Oh, if you’re still here during summer, Todd, we should definitely take part. Maybe we should start knitting an American flag for the occasion. What do you think?”

He can only nod.

 

* * *

 

 

They make it to the grocery store without incident—aside from the broken fire hydrant caused by a distracted driver and the one, single person who ran away screaming, and the handful that crossed themselves,  _and_  the one person bold enough to snap a picture with their phone before Todd grabbed it from their hands and threw it while Granny Ethel wasn’t looking, too distracted with how well the city’s roadside flowers were blooming—and Todd, ever the gentledemon, takes a small shopping cart from its line and trails behind Granny Ethel as she consults the list taken from her purse.

As expected, those within the store stop and stare. Even the calming elevator music jolts to a pause.

A young man in an employee vest, who looks high, shoots Todd the demon-horn hand sign and smiles before swaggering away to the frozen food aisle, and the manager meekly approaches them, skirting around a fresh fruit display.

“Ma’am, is there—is there something I can—do you need help?” he asks, sweating from his receding hairline to his neck as he tugs at his collar and straightens his frumpy tie.

“Oh! I’m so glad you asked. I didn’t see any sales circulars by the door—what kind of specials are on right now? Particularly on things like pizzas and cereals and whatever else young men like to eat.” Granny Ethel leans in close to the man, close enough to loudly whisper, “See, my grandson here is a quiet, shy boy despite his appearance, and I don’t think he’d ask me himself, but I bet he’d love to get some junk food to snack on between meals.”

The manager’s eyes widen, blood-shot, as he looks to Todd, who only smiles—which comes off as terrifying, he’s certain, with all the sharp teeth and red eyes involved.

“S-SURE! Junk food. Right. Um—uh, w-well, I think there’s a BOGO—buy one get one free—deal on the frozen pizzas. Uh…most cereals are marked down right now…th-there’s a sale on potato chips…hot dogs…” His voice trails off, too burdened with trembles and fear as he continues to hold Todd’s gaze. “And—you know, I’m sure some other employee can help you, ma’am. I’m not one anymore as of this moment.  _I QUIT_.” That said, he yanks the flimsy plastic nametag from his shirt and runs for the door, followed by half of the shoppers who abandon their carts and drop their baskets, scattering groceries everywhere.

Granny Ethel watches him go, then sighs. “He must have been overworked and stressed. I almost walked out on a job a long time ago for the same reasons, but I needed it. You be careful of corporate America, Todd.”

He takes her words to heart, and he fully agrees.

Shoppers that remain in the grocery mart avoid them at all costs as they meander through the frozen food section, the bread aisle, the junk food corner—and Granny Ethel pays them no mind, filling the cart to the brim with refills of groceries she needs back at home and treats she thinks Todd needs more of in his life. He supposes he does, if she says he does. Far be it from him to contradict her adolescent-savvy wisdom.

Even so, the single shopping cart is far too small for all of the spoils—halfway through the shopping list, he finds them in need of another. It isn’t an issue. Many are left scattered, abandoned, around almost every corner. By the end of the list, both carts are full to the brim, and Granny Ethel is simply beaming.

The checkout lines are deserted—they have their pick. Although only one station is manned by a clerk, and it greatly narrows their choice.

As Todd wheels the two shopping carts to the register, he recognizes the young employee from before, who once again shoots him the demon-horn hand symbol.

“Love your poncho, dude,” Sam (as his nametag reads) comments with a bit of a tired drawl, and there are dark shadows under his eyes as expected from an overworked youth on minimum wage, but he is otherwise energetic, quickly scanning each of the items set on the conveyor belt, and smiling at demon and old woman in turn. “Did the little lady here knit that for you?”

“Crocheted!” Granny Ethel corrects with a grin, preening like a proud parakeet. “It does suit him, doesn’t it? Of course, I would never make something that didn’t suit my dear grandson. He must  _always_  be well-dressed.”

“You seem like a really supportive gramma. That’s cool. When I was in my super hardcore death metal phase, mine just dragged me to church every Sunday.” A digital  _beep_  accompanies nearly every word as he skillfully rings up each grocery down the line.

“Oh, I would never do that. Mainly because I no longer belong to a church. And also because Todd seems so averse to discussing Bible passages, so I never force him.”

At this, Todd gives a wry smile. He places the final handful of groceries onto the conveyor belt and sidles around Granny to the other side of the checkout, bagging the groceries that have already been scanned. It seems the official bag boy has fled in fright.

“I can imagine. Never one for religion, myself. Oh, and you’re eligible for the senior citizen’s discount, so let me just…” Sam pauses a moment to key in a code on the register and it dings. “Aaand, there. Your total comes out to $204.56. Stocking up for the winter already? It’s only March.”

“Oh, dear, no. Half of this is for the food drive!” Granny Ethel chuckles good-naturedly as she leans her cane against the counter and digs through her small pocketbook and produces a checkbook, then dives back in to search for her favorite pen.

Sam turns to Todd while awaiting payment. “By the way, dude, that costume is  _killer_. I’ve never seen anything so realistic, with the added bonus that you scared the boss away! Totally made my day. My  _week_ , even.”

Todd gives a nod, happy to be of service, even if it isn’t a costume. He can’t exactly say it aloud. Perhaps one day he’ll learn how to speak English coherently, but for now nonverbal cues work just fine.

Finally, Granny Ethel finds her pink, plastic jewel-encrusted ballpoint pen and makes out a check to DeVille-Mart, even going so far as to take one of the heavier paper bags for herself, never one to make Todd carry all of the groceries himself. “You have a wonderful day, young man. Thank you.”

“Y’all have a great day, too, Ma’am.” Sam offers a toothy smile, and it seems sincere enough as he sees them off with a lazy wave “Hope to be seeing you shop here again.”

Todd isn’t so sure they’ll ever return once upper management hears about this visit, but it’s nice to know they are accepted by at least one individual.

“Now, Todd, let’s get to the food bank. We have such a long day ahead of us. But there’s a reward at the end of it—I bought ingredients specifically for chocolate turtle brownies!”

If the visit to the food bank is in any way similar to this excursion—and it will be, he decides, as yet another gawking driver’s car slow-collides with the corner vending machine when they pass through the automatic doors—they have a long day ahead of them, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)  
>  This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).


	3. First Contact, Part I

_(Inspired by a binge play of Mass Effect 1, a silly conversation with **[ysmirel](https://tmblr.co/mobWC1HE33rUaC8mk1DKpOw) ** and also from reading too many (wonderful) alien stories on tumblr.)_

 

* * *

 

They thought they were safe.

They thought _their_  galaxy would never be a problem, because no sane, sentient organism would ever venture into, or out of, that hazardous place willingly—that dangerous fortress of a planetfar too close to its star center, simultaneously protected and threatened by Planet ZS-01’s gravitational field and vibrantly thriving despite several near-misses with asteroid strikes and gradually increasing heat deterioration.

They assumed this for several decades, centuries, passing detailed warnings and fearmongering education of the singular species down by generations and knowing they’d never face an issue with too much interest in that isolated, forbidden corner of the megaverse because of the carefully-maintained precautions.

For all their calculations, however, they overlooked one vital detail—something so incredibly basic that in hindsight they  _should_  have predicted it—in omnisight, should have known it would happen, yet overlooked it out of—they weren’t too vain to admit it—sheer arrogance. That detail was: when one species reaches out and repeatedly attempts to communicate, especially one not deterred by radio silence, another species will inevitably respond. Particularly, those ugly, unsavory, desperate Isa from the Kraal System who were  _warned_ , always warned, and heavily fined, but never listened. But the fault originated with them, for not keeping a closer eye on those anomalous creatures, for being too complacent in believing the Isa were far too worthless for  _those_   _beings_  to accept.  

And so, despite their efforts, and due to their own failings, first contact was made.

“Gormar Xeldan? We’ve, intercepted a transmission, from—” The waifish Eeos were known for their frail and stammering vocal clicks, but this pause was intentional, and unsettling, “—from Planet TF-01. From  _Earth_ , Xir.”

“Your point? Handle it as you always do. Close communications and quarantine the sound waves.” The gormar said the words automatically, hoping they would suffice. Praying this wasn’t a unique situation, because no one being ever mentioned  _that_ planet by its given name.

“I would, Xir, but, Xir, this message has a, specific recipient, in the Kraal System—the Isa. Specifically, to Kann’ir, their self-appointed magnate. They—they are, arranging a summit. Accepting an, invitation.”

“ _Accepting?_  When was the invitation  _sent?_  How did we not intercept unauthorized communication waves to the Xeno System?”

“Because, you’ve said it yourself, Xir, they lack the proper intelligence, and, their messages can hold no significant content. We—we simply missed it, because, we weren’t looking.”

“Block all further communications between TF-01 and the Kraal System! Open up a contact channel with Gormar I’il immediately!”

“Not Kann’ir, Xir?”

“Not that bumbling  _gorgav_ , no!”

This was their worst circadian vision come true. It was what this very organization was built to prevent—the first, and last, line of defense between  _Earth_  and everything beyond. Everything that needed to be protected from its flagrant neocortal pollution, because there was a higher moral order, one that could not be ignored, and that planet’s very existence threatened to tear it all down and destroy the very foundation.  

“Xir, we’ve received readings of light travel, in the Xeno System! Earthians, are on the move! I repeat,  _Earthians, are on the move!_ ”

Every manner of abrasive language escaped the gormar’s tentacled vocal orifice as he rushed to the comm screen, manually connecting to the Kraal System’s military alliance and cranking its priority to zeta.

“Ah, Gormar Xeldan! How nice it is to hear from you,” came the croaking, liquidy warble of the Isa’s highest-ranked military overseer upon immediate response. Not that they needed one, because, by H’orlak, the species was as pacifistic and indolent as they came. It was a glorified armchair position, a societal bragging right, Xeldan knew, but going through the proper channels was protocol and he was obligated by rank.

“Do not patronize me, Gormar I’il. Reveal this Earthian scheme of yours before you endanger the megaverse!”

“Scheme? There’s no scheme,” I’il was quick to deny. “We Isa are only acting as cordial hosts extending the hand of friendship to a  _most_  intriguing species. Don’t take us for fools, Xeldan, as I know you do—we’ve arranged the meeting to take place on your station. Neutral territory.  _Safe_  territory, as you say. Our revered Kann’ir and two others are transporting to Holos now.”

“There is nothing even remotely  _friendly_  about your intention, I’il. Of all the intergalactic species, you Isa are as repulsive as the Earthians.”

“Your bias is unfounded, Xeldan. Rooted in fear. Not surprising, coming from the group that named the Earthian’s system  _Xeno_. From the group that denominated our system such a shameful word. Or perhaps you are just upset your sibling entered unity with one of us. Isa and Vendarian hybrid offspring are quite adorable. And Xeldiir is such a wonderful custodial unit. Very kind. Caring. Accepting.” A low, hum vibrated in her throat—a derisive laugh—as Xeldan’s facial glands emanated a pulsing, furious bioluminescence. “Give my regards to the Earthians, Xeldan. Please don’t scare them away with your prejudice.”

Xeldan slammed his tactile extremity to the hologram board to cut the call, but the channel had already been closed. He realized his bioluminescent pulses were illuminating the darkened screen before him and paused a moment to meditate, to regulate his levels, and spoke as the glowing white lights flickered away into the folds of his skin.

“Prepare to receive Magnate Kann’ir and his guards at the transport bay. Ready the access ways for docking. Enact all decontamination procedures. Earthians are scheduled to board.”

The Eeos gasped collectively. “Xir?”

“It wasn’t a mistake. We will allow them onto the Holos.”

It  _was_ a mistake, however. Any contact with disreputable Earthians could be nothing less.

 

* * *

 

Kann’ir and his duo of guards did not meet Xeldan on the bridge after arrival, but rather hovered eagerly near the access way airlocks, crowding together near a semi-sphere porthole, waiting for the first signs of their Earthian friends’ arrival among the stars, and blatantly disregarding decontamination measures.

To Xeldan, the trio looked more like an unnecessary smudge of gelp on the window, in need of cleaning. How his bio-organic counterpart could ever pledge unity to one of— _those_ —forever escaped his understanding.

“Kann’ir,” he spoke as he approached, never one to mask his presence, never one to quiet his many footsteps, but knowing the Isa would ignore him if he didn’t vocally announce himself.

“Gormar Xeldan! Gormar, this is an  _absolutely_ monumental light cycle! First contact with the Earthians— _humans_ —”

“Do  _not_  speak that word. Not on the Holos, not in the Kraal System—nowhere. Ever,” he spoke, containing his rage, but inadequately, much to his irritation. “And do not think you’ve escaped disciplinary action for arranging this entirely under our radar.”

“You are so uptight, Gormar. Xeldiir was not exaggerating.” Kann’ir hovered near the tempered Ilite glass a moment longer before turning to face him. If Xeldan hadn’t been watching, he wouldn’t know what side of the Isa he was looking at. If they didn’t each have distinct voice patterns, he wouldn’t know who he was speaking with. “Old ideals, rhetoric, propaganda—do you not see that the megaverse is changing? Earthians are of this plane. They have a right to meet with us. To interact. To be part of what we have.”

“There is only one thing Earthians are interested in having.”

The orb in Kann’ir’s center, the hub of a system of web-like veins throughout its body, hummed as its hue seeped into black. “Misconceptions. That is—you let yourself be blind to their true potential. They are intelligent. Progressive. And…lonely. I don’t suppose a Vendarian would understand, not even if H’orlak or the Orveran spoke it in their own verses.”

“You speak so highly, so certainly, of a singular species that wishes to copulate with anything— _anything_.”

“Misconceptions, as I said. Not incorrect—but only a subset of the whole.”

“As if luring a Vendarian into your collective wasn’t appalling enough, now you seek to absorb Earthian lineage? Just like them, you Isa will copulate with anything as well.”

Kann’ir did not respond immediately, but regarded him with a tangible air of dismay.

“We are a small species. A dying species. Procreating is not priority zeta, however—we only wish to pass on our existence. Our history. H’orlak knows none of you or your association will preserve us. Humanity expressed interest. Curiosity. Drive. Not only toward the Isa—but any other beings who would cast aside their pride and reciprocate communication. Vendarian, Eeos, even Gorgav. Earthians are, first and foremost, pioneers.”

“Speak this garbage to any other being, and you would be persecuted.”

“Further than we already have been?”

This was a conflict between two species that would never reconcile their differences, at least not without adequate motivation. For now, their argument was at a standstill, and would have to remain as such for the time being, because a glinting light in the distance signaled the Earthians’ long-belated arrival.

There was not much about the Earthians Xeldan did not know, as much as it pained him to admit it. One of his duties on Holos was to monitor their activity within the Xeno System, and on Earth itself. It was not unknown that they’d embarked into stellar real estate ventures, sending recreation stations up to orbit their planet. Last he’d checked, they’d been in the process of installing amusement parks on their only moon. AR-01, Mars, was a work in progress, but it seemed they intended to expand their population outward as far as they could go. The further from the star center, the better, he always said of his own system. But he was also aware the Earthians could not survive  _too_  far from their star center.

He was aware of their appearance—and the variations of morphology therein. He was aware of their fondness for warfare, which, over the decades, had waned considerably. It was a danger that could be rekindled, now that they had been granted confirmation of and contact with sentient, intelligent celestial lifeforms beyond their galaxy, the center of their own small world.

They were small-minded, one-track creatures, he firmly believed. Only a small step above the Isa, and only due to their superior bipedal evolution.

But no matter how much he thought he knew, meeting two Earthians for the first time was something no one being could have prepared him for.  

The docking process was slow, if only because their Earth ship was small and the particle pathway joining them to the Holos had to calibrate its vacuum seals appropriately to prevent gas leaks, and then, once that was resolved, their entrance should have been relatively swift. Yet, the two Earthians procrastinated, examining every bit of the translucent pathway as they walked over the void of space, vocal orifices—no, they called them  _mouths_ —rounded in— _awe_ , was it? He’d studied their facial patterns in depth, but he found in person, they were difficult to decode.

The Isa vibrated in joy at his side, buzzing with anticipation, nerve webs crackling, as they watched the Earthians make their way ever closer, but all Xeldan felt was dread. It wasn’t often he  _felt_  much of anything. His tactile extremities had dried, sliding uncomfortably against the standard-issue laser blade holstered at his side. Only as a precaution.

The second the pressure locks disengaged and the airlock released, hatch sliding upwards, chattering noises and peculiar throat-vibrations filled the area. It took Xeldan a fair nano tic to realize the Earthians were  _laughing._ Bouncing, hyper gestures—spasmodic as the Eeos—as they held each other by the arms and spread their vocal orifices, displaying their tusks—no,  _teeth_ —in a startlingly bold gesture.

The Isa, however, weren’t shaken. Eagerly, they approached, and several quick gestures were exchanged. None came across correctly—their customs were of a different scale. But they laughed it off—both the Earthians and the Isa. As if they’d long been acquainted. Allied.

Preposterous.

The Earthian with the long, limp, brown skull-tendrils— _hair_ —spoke to him suddenly, fixed her two oculars— _eyes_ , no, oculars, as that word equated something different in his language, yet he couldn’t call them biolumes, either—shielded by her helmet’s lens, on him, and he didn’t realize until her comrade approached and moved his mouth as well that he hadn’t adjusted his aural frequencies to accommodate Earthian tongue. He tapped the side of his headset once, twice, filtering through Earthian languages, before locking in on the proper translation channel.

“Can they understand?” The Earthian with the sheared skull-tendrils and dark skin spoke, oculars flitting from his companion to Kann’ir as he set a hand against his helmet and shifted on his legs, awaiting response.

“Connor? Can they understand us? Or, uh, do you have to translate?” The female Earthian asked Kann’ir, mouth puckered into a peculiar shape reminiscent of a Gorgav’s. Disgusting.

“There will be no need for that. I understand just fine.”

Confusion transitioned into shock, oculars going wide, and mouths rounding once again. The scale of which their facial patterns could alternate, and with such speed, horrified him. But he wouldn’t show it, and to his relief, his biolumes did not betray him.  

“I am Gormar—General—Xeldan, and I am the head of the Holos Station.”

“Good Gods, he can speak English!” The male Earthian’s vocals boomed as he took a step back, pressing his tactile— _hand_ —to his thorax— _chest_ , Xeldan corrected himself, finding this experience becoming increasingly irritating, among everything else.

“Wow! Hi, um, General—Gormar—sir! My name is Greta. Greta Christie. This is Nwoye Jordan.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Gormar Zeldan, sir.”

Hearing their foreign vocals speak his native language, and doing a poor job of it, was not a pleasure. Especially when their round, wide oculars continued to watch him, incessant.

“Now, Gormar Xeldan, mind your manners.” Kann’ir prodded, hovering higher at his side. “And you two, as well, Greta, Nwoye. Staring is not something the Vendarian are accustomed to.”

“So—so sorry about that. It’s just—you’re  _huge!_  Gormar, sir,” Greta added, displaying her teeth again, giddy. “And Vendarian are just so different from the Isa. I don’t know what I expected, maybe a lot of similar-looking, uniform beings like Connor, like big jelly slugs, but,” her oculars caught sight of a nosy Eeos lurking near the maintenance station and her head wobbled. “You’re all so…so different. So many. I—I want to hug—”

“I’d like permission to take photos, to document this. May I?” Nwoye spoke up, spoke over his companion and stepped in front of her in a daring display of disrespect that, for other species, could assure death, and pulled up a black cube of an object with a cylindrical attachment and a shining lens. It looked much like an obsolete replication device from several orbit cycles past. “It would be a great advantage to take records back with us, for posterity.” The Earthian watched him intently, then looked away, recalling Kann’ir’s previous cautions.

“Be sure to capture my good side,” Kann’ir warbled lightly, always making light of any potential hazard.

Xeldan was not so lenient.

“No. Enough chatter. You will follow me to the conference chamber—and you will not freely wander this station. Understood?”

Greta’s breathing patterns hitched, while Nwoye tucked his replication device into a large pocket and hummed, holding his extremities— _arms_ —out in a helpless motion.

“Understood, Earthians?”

They exchanged a look—a  _look_  Xeldan did not like—and wobbled their heads.

“Understood, sir.”

He did not have full confidence that they did.

 

* * *

 

The conference chamber was apparently to their liking—without waiting for permission, they dropped their bodies into the rounded chairs and reached for their helmets, communicating that the O-readings were sufficient, and removed them with a hiss of vapor that had Xeldan taking an unwilling step backward, toward the hatch, in apprehension. Then, much to his mortification, they continued to shed their bulky, protective shielding, until all that remained were fashions similar to what he’d seen in “magazines.”

Kann’ir and his guards took the head of the table, floating above their seats, cores pulsing a low blue. Bioluminescence ran the spectrum for varying species—that hue indicated calm, if he wasn’t mistaken. Nwoye held his replication device on the table surface, oculars wandering longingly throughout the area, specifically to the sealed hatch. Greta focused on a square attached to her wrist before bringing up a hologram screen displaying a geo map and a series of symbols—Earth numerals. Their initial giddiness seemed to have subsided.  

“Okay, so, Nwoye, I’m gonna be honest here,” Greta spoke as she eyed the screen, specifically a flickering pinpoint. “Ensign Rodgers doesn’t know I took the Griselda out for a deep space spin, so, as much as I don’t want to, we’ll have to make this conference quick.”

Nwoye quickly pivoted his head in a way that made Xeldan’s ache. “You didn’t tell me  _that,_  Gret. You said you had his permission!”

“ _I_  said I had access to my brother’s—uh, General Salcedo’s private ship. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“I can  _not_ believe—”

“What, you really can’t? Really? It’s okay! Don’t worry. We have two hours—Earth time—before he gets back and…well, yeah. Shit will hit the fan. I’ll get sent back to Earth for, like, a month, and you’ll be given a slap on the wrist. Nothing that would make us regret this trip.”

“Alright…okay. Yeah. Let’s make this quick—we’re here to establish ambassadorship, right, Connor, my man?”

“ _I’m_  just here for the sightseeing. And sights there  _are_.”

If Xeldan wasn’t mistaken, her oculars drifted to him for a tic longer than was comfortable—and that brief look was all he needed to confirm his suspicions of their visit. “There will be no  _ambassadorship_. Kann’ir, what is this? How long have you continued communications with Earthians?”

“I met Connor when I was fourteen!” Greta raised her hand high and bared her teeth. “Caught a weird radio wave. Oh, I’m twenty-three, now, if that answers any questions. I told Nwoye about it when we were in sophomore year and we’ve all been talking ever since.”

It did answer questions.

Xeldan turned on the Isa and slammed his extremities to the table, rattling its surface, shocking the Earthians into swiftly drawing their arms away from it.

“ _Sixteen_  orbit cycles, Kann’ir!?”

Nwoye exhaled. “Seems like you underestimate the Isa. So we’ve been told.”

Greta’s oculars narrowed a bit with an indecipherable nuance. “Yeeep. They’re not as stupid as you think. Also, they’re, like, super horny? In a weird way. Are you all down to fuck humans?” This, she directed at Xeldan, who, with repulsion, watched Kann’ir’s biolumes flash yellow in a rare show of embarrassment. He was sure his own were steadily approaching white.

“Greta,” Nwoye warned, dragging his hand over his face. “Don’t.”

“No, no, wait—I wanna know. I’m an opportunist, and the general’s got it goin’ on with that space Cthulhu look.”

Kann’ir warned her, too. “Greta, Vendarian do not take kindly to jokes. They are literal—and close-minded.” His vocals were hushed, at those final words.

Greta looked to him, and was silent for a tic.

“Not fully joking, but I’ll shut up.”

It was the final straw for Xeldan.

“Yes, do ‘shut up.’ Do not dare to think you Earthians were invited here unanimously. This meeting is strictly between you and the Isa. _I_  am only here to ensure you understand your place. If it were up to me, neither you, nor the Isa would be within a negameter of this station. You Earthians are a blight upon the megaverse. Nothing more than gelp on the  _bottom side_  of a  _Gorgav_.”

Greta slapped a hand to her chest, mouth curving downward, as she reeled back in her seat as if physically struck, and did not shut up.

“Wow. Rude much. I know what a Gorgav is and  _ouch_. Look, I know you Vendarian are typically pretty strait-laced—going by what Connor’s said before, at least—and dirty humor apparently isn’t in your pristine DNA. But humans are  _not_  a blight. We try to reach out, and only one,  _one_ , species responds, out of many. Do you know how long we’ve tried to make contact? How many  _oribit cycles?_  Why don’t you actually try to get to know us before being such a—a  _bormlat._ ”

It was supposed to be an insult in their language, he was certain, but it was terribly botched. So, a  _bormlat_  he was going to be. “The only thing we need to  _know_  of you is that you remain permanently in your star system. You Earthians who possess no moral center, who abandon all dignity and draw no lines concerning who or what you will fornicate with and corrupt completely. Even your necrotic are continually violated, as well as your fellow Earth organisms and your _selves_. Sometimes  _into_  a necrotic state. But there is also what you  _wish_  to violate—cheap imitations of interstellar species you have never seen, yet join with regardless, projecting threats—don’t act innocent, Earthian, when you yourself attempt to seduce me.”

He hadn’t intended to lash out—knew better, had trained, regulated himself so carefully over several cycles—but the Earthians had caught him off guard. Scrambled his equilibrium. His biolumes were flashing, brightening the room, and all oculars were trained on him, like laser sights.

“Gormar Xeldan, please,” Kann’ir attempted to speak, gently, but Greta’s vocals sounded firmly over his in another rude spectacle.

“What the fuck is he talking about?”

“Greta, don’t. Please don’t.” Nwoye had concealed his entire facial structure behind his hands, shaking his head back and forth. “You promised. You promised it wouldn’t get like this. This was supposed to be an ambassadorship meeting. Ambassadors are supposed to be…to be  _gracious._  Gods. Gods… Don’t start a galactic war.”

“Connor?”

Kann’ir had fallen silent, core pulsing, neuron network branching out of his soft body like spindles to anchor himself to the table, too exhausted to expend energy hovering.

“What the fuck do you think humans are? You—you’re simplifying us into shallow  _porn_  stereotypes. Where did you get all this bad information? Literal pornography?” Slowly, she stood, pressing her hands firmly to the table surface, oculars focused like laser beams, set directly on him despite knowing it would be best not to. She wasn’t deterred even as Nwoye set a cautioning hand on the arm nearest to him.

“And don’t flatter yourself. There’s a small,  _insignificantly_  small, percentage of humans who would seriously be attracted—or desperate—enough to get on  _that_. They’re out there, sure, but they won’t be coming for any of you in  _droves_. Not the  _Isa_ , and definitely not the  _Vendarian_. Furthermore, there’s even a portion of us who don’t think of  _fornicating_  at all.” She swiveled her oculars to the ceiling before blinking her ocular folds several times consecutively. “I can’t believe species who live in such a diverse society can still be so damn biased. Maybe we are better off staying in our own system, if this is the kind of shitty, uninformed welcome we’ll get.” She grabbed her insulated suit and pulled it on roughly. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, Nwoye.”

Kann’ir hummed from his spot atop the table, gelatinous form losing its shape, wobbling in disappointment. “I tried to tell him.”

“The Isa are welcome to visit Earth anytime, and we’ll treat you well. Full V.I.P. treatment, as long as you promise to be good,” Nwoye consoled him as he reached for his helmet, securing it over his head with a dull  _whump_. “We didn’t want it to end this way, and we wish it hadn’t. But Greta’s right, as crude as her words are, and we won’t apologize. It’s not right. We expected better.”

Xeldan held his silence as the Earthians were suited up, and the entire time, his biolumes flared a blinding yellow, which no one drew attention to.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been such a  _bormlat._  Perhaps their intercepted data had provided an…incorrect perspective, rooted in broadcasted data waves that did not reveal an entire picture of humanity. Meeting the Earthians, and furthermore, attempting to visit their system, would provide more reliable data. Just from meeting these two, he’d come to discover they weren’t lusty, thirsting, all-consuming organisms that would stop for no one being. They were not dissimilar from the other species, in their desire to be recognized and accepted.

It was a mistake due to arrogance—the same pitfall that allowed this meeting to occur in the first place.

“’Scuse us, General.”

Greta stood before him, Nwoye at her side, Kann’ir and his guards wobbling forward on spindle nerves behind them. He hadn’t realized he was blocking the exit. Without a word, he stepped aside and pressed the hatch release.

It wasn’t until they reached the access ways that he spoke again.

“An apology is in order.” There was nothing wrong with the phrasing, he didn’t believe, but perhaps his vocals were too harsh. Greta stopped, whirled on her heel and opened her mouth wide, no doubt preparing to further educate the error of his ways, before he held up a tactile extremity—recognizable communication for  _stop_. And she did.  “On  _my_  behalf. Our data on Earth is incomplete and prone to fallacy. You claim you are different, and as such, I will take you on your word. We are not experts.” He paused for one, two, three tics. “Forgive me.”

This time, they were silent. Including Kann’ir, who glowed pale green in surprise.

“Your time seems to be short on this light cycle, but I’d like to arrange a summit with Earth in the near future. In the meantime, you, Greta Christie and Nwoye Jordan, are free to visit the Holos Station—for educational purposes—at your discretion.”

The Earthians stared.

For a tic, Xeldan feared he’d spoken the wrong phrases, forgotten to translate properly, but in the next instant, Greta raised her hand and slapped the soft palm-side against the rigid grip-side of his tactile extremity, teeth bared once again. It didn’t harm him—startled him, most definitely, and he only stared, all sets of biolumes fixed on her as she removed her hand and waved, as Nwoye waved in turn, and they took their leave, passing through the airlock, wandering through the translucent pathway, and disappearing into their ship. Then, just like that, their ship vanished into the stars and still, his extremity was raised, frozen in place, and his biolumes pulsed yellow, lighting up the corridor.

“…What happened just now, Kann’ir?” he asked the Isa at his side, who buzzed with mirth.

“I believe Earthian Greta Christie just offered unity to you, Gormar Xeldan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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>  This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).


	4. First Contact, Part II

**Second Visit**

 

* * *

 

It was no surprise the Earthians did indeed return for a second visit to the Holos Station.

However, Gormar Xeldan had not been present to receive them. That light cycle, he’d been summoned to the council to present the recent lunar phase’s activity log for review. Among which was the arrival of the Earthians Greta Christie and Nwoye Jordan. Magnate Kann’ir had been present as well, if only in particle projection, to provide his statement as a witness to the event.

It may have been due to the Isa’s presence, and the council’s bias against the species, or perhaps because the Holos Station’s research had been so successful over the decades, that they determined the visit to be nothing more than a vivid circadian vision. Because  _there could_ absolutely _be no Earthians in this star system_ , Gormar.  _Have you imbibed above the suggested dose,_ Gormar?  _Is it_ that  _phase of the orbit cycle_ , Gormar?  _You must return to your home planet and replenish your neocortal levels._

That response was not one he’d test with proposing a tentative alliance between their species, no, if he mentioned  _that_  he’d surely be dismissed and discharged from the project completely—as a laughing stock, no less. He needed irrefutable proof—and the next time he stood before that council full of—of  _bormlats_ , for lack of a better term—he’d be prepared to make them regurgitate their innards in shame.  

It was the exact reason he’d appointed the Eeos to install a surveillance network throughout the Holos, created specifically to track Earthian presence, after they made first contact.

It  _was_  a surprise that the network captured an imprint while he was away.

“Xir, welcome back,” clicked the Eeos stationed at the communications desk as Xeldan traded his helmet for a headset. “You just missed, the Earthians, however, we’ve documented their visit, if you’d like to review.”

“The Earthians were here? For how long?”

“Not long, Xir, they intended to meet with you, or with Magnate Kann’ir, and claimed they waited, as long as they could. Before departure, Earthian Greta left correspondence for you, Xir. Tergan Znn delivered it, to your data hub.”

His tactile extremity slipped against the headset band, not clumsily enough for the Eeos to notice, but  _he_  noticed it and primed his vocals loudly as he tried not to recall the encounter with Earthian Greta, and how she’d boldly— _publicly_ —proposed unity to him in obvious social faux pas. It had been a mistake. An accident. An error in cultural communication—one he’d have to educate the Earthians on in future.

It was still embarrassing, however, that the first being to propose had been an Earthian and not a Vendarian—and his colleagues did not let him forget it, even if it was in jest. “Send the imprint to my data hub as well. I’ll review it at my research desk immediately.”

“I think, Xir, you will find it, rather entertaining.”

The Eeos’ jovial vocal clicks were not given a response, but he supposed the dull yellow glow of his biolumes was response enough.

He didn’t read the correspondence when he accessed his data hub. Why, he wasn’t sure, as it would take less time, but instead of dwelling on it he selected the imprint file and replayed the visit, funneling the aural waves to his headset and adjusting the resolution of his hologram screen.

The thatched cross-beams of the screen revealed the main corridor of the access ways, focusing particularly on the airlock hatch where Earthians Greta and Nwoye soon appeared, as eager to board as ever.

“Oh. Well. I expected to see some familiar faces,” Greta said with pause, pulling off her helmet and tucking it under her arm as she surveyed the corridor, populated only by the Earthians and a single Eeos. Tergan Znn administered maintenance to one of the broken doorway hatches (at times, they jammed, and thanks to budget tightening, they hadn’t been able to buy new) with hir back to the two beings, and answered without turning hir oculars.

“The gormar is at a meeting, Earthian Greta. As is Magnate Kann’ir.”

“Oh, well, who’s second in command? Is it alright that we’re here when Xeldan’s not? Who are you?  _What_  are you—I mean, is it alright to ask that? About your species, I mean.” She took a brief moment to nudge her partner and say something so quietly that the surveillance devices only caught bits of it, in the order of “ _looks like_ ” and “ _earth worm_ ” and “ _Jim_.”

Beside her, after taking off his own helmet and sending her a wordless look, Nwoye tinkered with the replication device hanging from his neck and his brow ridge— _eyebrows_ —rose a considerable degree as he turned his full attention to the Eeos. “Not here? Really? What’s the policy on taking photographs right now?”

Tergan Znn looked to them at length, setting down hir laser multi-tool, and straightened up to hir full height, which was scarcely half of theirs, before speaking in the typical clicking vocal pattern of the species, albeit smoother, more refined.

“I am Tergan Znn, an Eeos from, the Ragbar System.” The instant ze began speaking, the two Earthians trained their oculars on hir with rapt attention. “Tergan is a rank of a separate branch, but roughly equivalent, to gormar. I have the authority to oversee your visit here, in Gormar Xeldan’s absence. I will answer all questions you have, regarding our systems, Earthian Greta.” Ze turned to Nwoye, briefly checking the replication device he absolutely intended to use. “Earthian Nwoye, you are free to take as many imprints, as you would like. I only ask that you seek permission, before taking.”

If the Earthian possessed biolumes, they’d certainly be flashing bright orange from his dark skin. As it was, the Earthian facial gesture of excitement was bared teeth and a raised brow ridge. As soon as he was granted permission, he reached into the large sealed pocket on his insulated suit to retrieve an archaic tablet screen, fingers flying fast across its bright surface, tiny muted  _plinks_  filtering into the imprint’s aural waves. After a tic, he looked to Tergan Znn. “How about you, now? What is it you’re doing? I’d love a photo.”

Beside him, Greta shifted on her feet, looking eager to speak, always curious, but struggling to remain silent as her colleague spoke.

“Of course, but this is only maintenance work. The doors tend to stick, if not properly lubricated. Then the tracks must be cleaned or replaced. I am, cleaning now. This isn’t interesting, I’m afraid, Earthian Nwoye.” Regardless, the replication device clicked several times in quick succession, in a sound not unlike the one the Eeos made, followed by a brief flash. Tergan Znn blinked twice before offering a kind and patient facial gesture to Nwoye.

“Of course it’s interesting!  _All_  of this is; it’s great. Tergan Zean, taking care of business.” A broad smile, bigger and more threatening than ever, crossed his face before it faltered. “Oh, I am saying your name right, ain’t I? Also—how do you spell that?” Again, his fingers were at the tablet screen, taking notes. “And, uh, forgive me asking, but you don’t have a maintenance crew for that?”

“No one job is above another among the Eeos,” ze explained. “It’s a bit less  _Zeen,_  and a bit more  _Jean._ That’s T-e-r-g-a-n, Z-n-n.”

“Wow, you can spell in our language!” said Greta as she crouched near the laser multi-tool, rolling it over in her palm, fingers ghosting over the activation buttons as she lined up a single ocular with the igniter plate for one terrifying tic that could have spelled galactic disaster.

“Yes, most of us on this station have a decent grasp of at least, five variations in Earthian language.”

“More than most Earthians, then,” she hummed, moving to the doorway, peering at the jammed tracks. “ _¿Así que hablas Español, eh?_ ”

“ _Si, un poco_.”

“ _¡Eso es impresionante!”_ She paused, looking to Tergan Znn in surprise. “ _Parlez-vous Français?_ ”

“I’m afraid our translators, can’t analyze that yet.”

“Good, because I only took it in high school.”

“▯▯▯ ▯▯▯ ▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯ ▯▯▯▯ ?” ze asked in a series of unfiltered and unstammering vocal clicks that was the Eeos mother language.

“Uh—nope? No? That’s not—It’s not Morse Code, but—?”

“You will learn a neutral language yet, Earthian Greta.”

“It was  _close_  to Morse Code.” Nwoye looked up from his screen. “Gret, I’m gonna take a look around and get some more photos—there’s some Eeos over there by the window and they look interested. You gonna be okay on your own? Gonna be  _good_  this time?”

“I’ll be  _fine_. I’m gonna stay and have a chat with Jean, here. I have plenty of questions, and, uh, stuff to say, too.”

“Oh, yeah, I know. You wouldn’t shut up about it. You’ve been bugging me about it for weeks. Xeldan this, Xeldan that.” He looked to Tergan Znn with an odd half-smile. “Buddy, I hope you’ve got a lot of time to listen because she doesn’t know how to shut up.”

“All I have is time, until the next light cycle.”

“Well, alright. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The two beings watched as Nwoye approached the Eeos lurking around the end of the corridor, most too shy and reluctant to approach  _any_  species, and soon Tergan Znn returned to hir maintenance objective. “Will you hand me that laser multi-tool, Earthian Greta?”

She handed it over with a bob of her head and watched over the tergan’s shoulder as ze fit the tool into the narrow tracks and flicked on the igniter plate, vaporizing the gelp that coagulated over time with the thin red beam. “Just Greta is fine. Same for Nwoye.”

“Greta, then. And Nwoye.”

“You aren’t afraid of humans?”

Tergan Znn visibly recoiled upon hearing the word, laser beam jerking off-course and briefly searing the edge of the door frame and causing it to smoke slightly before ze set it back in place, twitching slightly. “No, but we’ve all been conditioned to react negatively to that word. Eeos have been aware of Earthians for an immeasurable amount of time. For some species, it’s hard to believe you exist at all, as more than a cautionary tale, and for others, like myself, it has been a long time coming, as foretold by the omnisight.”

“Omnisight?”

“A tradition of those from the Ragbar System. A ritual where the past meets the present and the future, and all are revealed through predictions and memories. In a sense, the Eeos have always known of your kind and, have always been aware you pose little  _real_  threat. It’s one of the reasons this station is occupied largely by the Eeos.”

“Then where did the idea start that hu—Earthians—were dangerous?”

“Because the beings in charge set the rules.” Ze terminated the laser and flicked open another tool, a standard scraper for the more delicate wiring. “Of course, you could say that we were too meek to, stand up to their decisions, as well, and were complicit in the slandering of all Earthians. It has been in motion for several…millennia, as you say. It will be hard to reverse the damage. But not impossible, with the proper guidance.”

Greta watched the tergan work for a moment, then looked over her shoulder to where the steady clicks from Nwoye’s replication device could be heard in the background, mingling with the distinct sound of the Eeos.

“Yeah. It’s hard to change old mindsets when people are stubborn. But it has to start somewhere.” She crossed her arms as best as she could through the thickness of her insulated suit. “I’m guessing word of our visit hasn’t spread yet, then?”

“Gormar Xeldan will discuss it at the meeting. Although I don’t have high hopes for the outcome.”

“Because no one likes Earthians.”

“Because if our reigning council on Vendaria even gives the gormar audience, they will likely take it as a hoax. If they do believe, they will take it as warning. These coordinates will be scrubbed, and the Holos Station relocated.” Satisfied with hir work, the tergan took a step back from the doorframe and tested the hatch, only to have it jam halfway through, struggling briefly in its tracks before retreating upwards. Resigned to the task, ze moved to the other side of the door frame and continued cleaning.

Quietly, Greta leaned back against the wall and sank slowly to the floor, dropping her helmet beside her. “All this could disappear at the drop of a hat? No way. Connor would still try to reach us. I mean, it isn’t like we’ve told anyone on Earth, or even the Egret, about what we found here, but…one day, and with your permission, we definitely will. This is something good.”

“You have been keeping  _aliens_  as a secret from your home world?”

“It isn’t like anyone would really believe it without concrete proof. Sorta like what you said with the council. My dad heads a big government project, my brother’s in the military— _borrowed_  his ship to get here again—and they’ve always had to deal with regular ol’ me ‘wasting my time’ on pursuing proof that aliens exist, so they’ve heard all of the usual. Most are hoaxes or confidential government operations, like Area 51 and anything that has to do with Roswell, false UFO sightings…but then Connor came along and, well, I  _still_  didn’t have any proof. Until now. No one could ignore this and they’d  _love_ it. Still, part of me  wants to keep it secret, keep it to myself. I’ve always wanted to meet aliens, and to be one of the first…?”

Tergan Znn kept silent, quietly working at dislodging the gelp gathered in the door tracks. Greta took that as a sign to continue.

“Which is why I was so damn  _mad_  when Xeldan said all of that stuff. It wasn’t how I pictured meeting any extraterrestrials, ever. I thought they’d love us, like, unconditionally, like we were the puppies of the universe or something. Celebrities or something. Like how Connor was so accepting of us. I never thought we’d be viewed as these debauched creatures no one even wanted to look at. Like ugly animals. And I was nervous. I said stupid things, because sometimes I forget to use my internal filter before speaking, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but it might have been partially my fault for saying that and giving a bad impression and—probably scaring Xeldan.

“Now, I still meant every word I said about how unfair it was to treat us that way, but I could’ve said it better. I could say a lot of things better. Nwoye’s always trying to teach me how to be more  _diplomatic_  but I guess it just never really sinks in. We’ve both dealt with a lot of discriminatory crap in our lives and he’s always been better at handling negativity. Can I tell you about the day we met and became BFFs?”

She asked, but clearly meant to continued regardless of response.

“Some drunk jerk was yelling out some nasty slurs at this kid while he was sitting in the park studying, like—I can’t say them, they’re not good words, or words for me to say, but there are a lot of words Earthians shouldn’t say but do anyway—and Nwoye just sat there, minding his own business, all pacifist. See, he fights with photos, not words or violence and all that. Well, not me. I was always a problem child, throwing punches when people deserved them. It kind of backfired. The guy ended up chasing us both, but we got away. We stuck together after that, so I could mouth off when people pissed us off and so he could keep me out of trouble.

“Then eventually I told him about Connor and we swore secrecy in a blood oath.” She paused. Smiled without showing teeth. “Not really. But not being taken seriously, looked down on—it wears on people after a while. Making contact with you guys is a big deal. And I want it to go well. So—I want to apologize to Gormar Xeldan. Not for what I said—well,  _some_  of what I said—but mostly how I said it.”

At some point during the discussion, Tergan Znn had stopped cleaning and focused fully on Greta without turning to face her. Likely because the mass of words required intense focus, even with their translation frequency decoding it, and the intermingled topics could become a tangled mess if the listener wasn’t careful.

At some point during their silence, Nwoye wandered back to them, teeth bared in a pleased smile as he reviewed information on his tablet. “Hey—don’t move, you two. I’m getting a photo of that scene.” 

He quickly raised his replication device, focused it, and snapped an imprint of Greta sitting still on one side of the corridor, looking across to Tergan Znn frozen mid-turn to face her on the other side, as if paused in enlightening conversation. “I heard her voice carrying down the hall. Told you she was a jabberjaw. But—man, I got some  _great_  shots, Gret. You won’t believe some of these. Did you know Eeos are the majority on this station? I met a nice secretary sorting through some holo screens, and she—nah,  _ze_  is how the Eeos call themselves, and I also learned something interesting about Vendarian pronouns but we’ll save that for later—took me to a recreation room where they were playing some board game like ‘ _Sorry!_ ’ but it had a name they couldn’t translate—”

“Ignbocl?” Tergan Znn supplied.

“Yeah—yeah, I think that’s what they said. So I got an  _inside glimpse_  at the daily life of Eeos workers on the Holos Station. And they weren’t even afraid! Don’t know what I’m gonna do with these besides just keep ‘em in a personal collection, but damn. I’m kinda glad Xeldan’s not here. I don’t think he’d let me take any photos.”

He paused, out of breath, still smiling, and glanced at the corner of his tablet.

“We gotta get going soon, Gret. We  _barely_  got back in time for nobody to notice, last time. We’ll come back again soon. And,” he turned to Tergan Znn. “To pass a message along, we erase the vessel’s travel logs every time we get back to the Egret. We’re the only ones who know how to get here, so don’t worry about anyone else coming by yet. And tell General Xeldan, and, Connor, if you see him, that we said hello.” A bit awkwardly, he held out his hand. “Thanks so much, Tergan Jean. Do, uh, you know what an Earthian handshake is?”

Tergan Znn clicked for a tic before extending hir left extremity and grasping Nwoye’s hand briefly. “Yes. That custom translates appropriately for Eeos.”

“Alright. I’m gonna go upload these to my hard drive and check ‘em. There was some  _really_  nice lighting going on…” One by one, he packed away his tablet, his replication device, and secured his helmet over his skull before heading to the particle pathway linked to their ship.

“He gets hyperfocused on photography sometimes,” Greta explained, respirating loudly before pushing herself to her feet and picking up the helmet she’d set down. She held out a cautious hand before drawing it back. “Anyway, I want to leave Xeldan a message. To get that apology across. Can you help me with that, Jean?”

Briefly, Tergan Znn’s oculars met the surveillance device. “I think it will reach the gormar just fine. But yes, come with me. We’ll take a vocal imprint.”

Xeldan stopped the imprint playback there, watching as the hologram screen flickered and shifted on the still image of Greta following Tergan Znn off-screen.

For a few tics, all he did was stare at that screen, unsure of how to react.

As if it would hold an answer, he sorted through the files on his data hub and pulled up the message file and set it to play.

_“…Alright, you can speak now.”_

_“Oh—ok. Great. Uh, General Xeldan. Greetings. Hi. This is Greta Christie speaking, obviously, because I’m the only female Earthian you know—uh. Tergan Jean is helping me with this message, so I’m probably going to mess it up—”_

The tergan’s voice was quiet, but clear—and then Greta’s was too loud, too close to the vocal capture device, and staticy with interference. Between that and her fast-paced, nervous excitement, it was near unintelligible. Xeldan paused the file, adjusted the settings to clear the feedback and finally managed to level it.

_“—But thank hir later for helping me with this. Ze was immensely helpful during this visit. Which, well, you missed. I hope things went well at your meeting. I wish I could say this face-to-face, but, well…things don’t always go the way we want them to. And I better say this now, because the next time Nwoye and I can visit might not come around for a while. You might not be there then, either._

_“Uh. I just want to apologize for, well, goading you last time. Saying things I shouldn’t have. Inappropriate stuff that sort of…fed into the stereotype you have for Earthians. If I didn’t say that, our meeting might have gone better. And I’m sorry for lashing out—but not for_ what _I said, just how I said it. I was…upset. I think it got through to you, either way, since you let us come back and all. But I hope you’ve been thinking about it and trying to be not-so afraid of us humans anymore, not so prejudiced. Re-educating yourself a little and all. Trying to be better. You know, extending the same courtesy to us._

_“One day, I think it’d be great if you came to visit us all on Earth, or even just the Egret station if you’re not ready for that. Maybe not so soon, but eventually. No—actually, whenever you want. Me and Nwoye aren’t the only Earthians who want to meet an alien. Bring some Eeos with you. Connor, too. Or, just you. I think Nwoye told you before, you’d get full VIP treatment as our first—our first Vendarian visitor. I won’t lie; it’ll turn into a whooole lot of politics, but this is a gap we have to bridge one day, so why not make it happen sooner than later? …Anyway, I’m sorry. And consider this an open invitation, like what Connor gave to us. He can tell you how to contact us._

_“That’s all I had to say. Uh. Bye. Be nice. That’s it. Did—did you stop it…? You can stop it now. I—”_

The message stopped.

And again, just as before, he simply stared, at a loss.

Several thoughts filtered through his mind, such as the fact that Earthian Nwoye managed to leave the Holos with photographic proof of their existence, regardless of whether or not he truly intended to keep them secret; the fact that Earthian Greta had left such a…tolerant message, when he’d expected a bit more yelling; that fact that  _she’d invited them to Earth_  and, most important of all, the fact that  _he_  now had evidence to present to the council, between the surveillance imprint and the message.

Bioluminescence filtered through a spectrum and lit up the room around him as the information registered, but he didn’t pay it much attention. There were more important things at hand.

Namely, a decision. He—no, all species in the megaverse—were at a crossroads, ready to intersect. And the choice of how it would play out had been placed upon him. 

If he accepted Greta’s invitation, galaxies would change. For better or worse, he wasn’t sure, but there would be change nonetheless. If he revealed evidence of Earthian presence to the council, there would still be change, but to a lesser degree. The Holos Station would be relocated as per safety protocols, the Isa homeworld would be put under strict surveillance, and Xeldan would likely lose his career for allowing Earthians into sterile territory. There would be a large-scale scare, worse than the Plemox Hoax of 2214.

Under normal circumstances, which involved firm regulations and procedures, the second option would be imperative. Under normal circumstances, which were much more xenophobic, he would never consider the first. Then again, the moment the Earthians set foot on the Holos Station, the course of history had changed drastically, and nothing was normal anymore.

It wasn’t a decision he could make on his own.

Xeldan cleared the surveillance imprint from his data hub and tapped the comm link in the top corner.

“Yes, Xir?”

“Contact Magnate Kann’ir and Gormar I’il in the Kraal System and have them transport over. It’s urgent. Priority zeta.” He paused a moment, then tapped the link again. “And prepare a correspondence relay for Xeldiir, as well. Tell them I apologize. For everything. I was wrong.”

The final decision was yet to be made, but Xeldan had a strong feeling that a trip to Earth was in the omnisight’s forecast, and had been for a long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)  
>  This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).
> 
> (Thanks so much ysmirel for translation help!)


	5. Mr. Sand Man

**plotsandpromptsforall @ tumblr:**

**Dialogue Prompt 60**

**“Ah yes, I nearly forgot to introduce everyone to you. These are my brothers ______ and ______ and our good friend ______.” Lowering his voice in mock discretion he continued, “Do be careful, they are hopeless children sometimes and will tease without mercy.”**

* * *

 

 

Since birth, sleep had never come easily for Cecilia—or at all, really. It wasn’t rooted in anxiety, it wasn’t insomnia, and it wasn’t for the fear of encountering Freddy Krueger. Her family had consulted doctors and specialists more times than she could count, yet none could prescribe a cure for her inability to catch even a moment’s rest.

The problem just  _was_.

Most of her life, she learned to function. To balance the amount of sodas and sweets and energy drinks she needed to appear bright and lively—or at least gain the energy to complete a day’s worth of tasks and keep deadlines straight. No amount of uppers could hide the dark smudges beneath her eyes, or the empty exhaustion that hit her when the hyper energy waned. It wasn’t until she entered high school that it began to negatively impact her grades, her social life, her  _happiness_ —and it wasn’t until then that her parents were desperate enough to take drastic measures.

It started as a joke. Just something facetious to brighten the gloom of an impossible situation.  _We should summon The Sand Man,_ her father had said.  _There’s not a person alive who could resist his magic sands of sleep._

_But there isn’t a way to just_ summon _him,_  her mother had pointed out, and with good reason,  _not like with the tooth fairy. Nobody’s seen him in years. Nobody._

_Dear, nobody_ ever _sees him. That’s the point._

Even so, the joke became a search, a quest; their only shot at returning their daughter to a normal circadian rhythm. They performed obscure rituals. They left piles of sand at her pillows. They played The Chordettes’ iconic song on a loop every night from her bedside table.

Still, nothing worked. And despite not being able to sleep, lying night after night among blankets filled with gritty dust that just never seemed to wash out became a nightmare in itself.

On the eve of her fifteenth birthday, Cecilia decided she’d had enough of her parents’ pointless crusade. Their hearts were in the right place, but they couldn’t help— _she_  couldn’t help herself.

“Mr. Sand Man,” she said, singing along to the incessant music at her ear, like a lullaby of a final hope; one she’d put to rest in the morning, “ _please_  bring me a dream.”

She closed her eyes, even if sleep wouldn’t come.

This was what her nights consisted of—keeping her eyes closed to rest her body, if not her mind, while remaining aware of the creaks in the framework, the night breeze, the nocturnal whispers and scurrying creatures who were awake, alive, while all else slept.

It was how she heard the scrape of her window in its tracks, how she heard the footsteps land gently on her floorboards, how she heard the rustling of a canvas sack and hushed whispers of a number of invaders.

When she felt a familiar salty dust, a familiar grit, trickle down against her eyelids, she hoped it would bring sleep, for once, but nothing changed.

“Nice try, but we both know placebos don’t work.” She opened her eyes—expecting to see her mother, her father, but the sight that met her instead was that of four strangers standing together at the side of her bed.

One, the oldest, holding a burlap sack in his hands, half-opened and revealing a pile of sand not unlike the miniscule dots speckling her sheets; two similar in looks, in height, like twins; and another, shorter, grumpier. All men, all dressed in outdated nightgowns and sleeping caps with pom-poms at the end.

“Well,” the man with the sand-filled sack breathed, eyebrows arched high, halfway to his hairline, one hand still filled with the small grains. He looked to it, then to her, then back to his hand before dropping it back into the sack and brushing his palm off on the side of his long robe. “ _That_  didn’t work. And it usually does, too. Only doesn’t, when—”

“Excuse me, but who are you? Did my parents hire you?” She sat up, clutching the sheets to her chest, eyebrows furrowing in suspicion.

“What? Of course not. Dear, you should know—didn’t you call for me? ‘Mr. Sand Man, bring me a dream!’ Well,  _I_  am Mr. Mortimer Sandman—Sandman, to you, and I am— _was_ —here to grant you a pleasant journey to dreamland.”

“Which failed,” Cecilia pointed out. “And who are the other three?”

“Ah yes, I nearly forgot to introduce everyone to you. These are my brothers, Wynken and Blynken, and our good friend Nod.” Lowering his voice in mock discretion, he continued, “Do be careful, they are hopeless children sometimes and will tease without mercy.”

“It’s all because of the sleep deprivation, you see,” said one of the twins, rubbing at one of his eyes as he released a jaw-cracking yawn.

“I just like a good joke,” said the other, seeming to find keeping both eyes open a difficult task, even as a lazy smile drifted across his lips.

“ _You_  try double-majoring with honors without a normal, healthy sleep schedule and being nice.” The third shrugged and rubbed at his neck. “And we aren’t children. Not anymore, at least. Also, those aren’t our real names— _Sandman’s_  the one who likes to tease.”

“Well, Wee, Willie, and Winkie are also good names.” Sandman busied himself tying the sack of sand up tight, then hanging it from the belt tied around his waist, hiding it beneath the flowing sides of his deep brown robe.

“But they  _aren’t_  our names.”

“Rip, Van, Winkle?”

“You flippant jerk, you forgot our real names after all these years, didn’t you?”

“Of  _course_  not—Eh, why don’t you three scamper along and make sure her parents are sleeping peacefully? I have business to discuss with the young girl.”

The three took their leave—but not without long-suffering eyerolls—and she could hear their footsteps pattering softly along the roof as they headed to her parents’ room.

Sandman waited until the footsteps faded, until only crickets chirping and owl hooting sounded in the night, and then took a seat in the rocking chair beside her bed. He folded his fingertips together, elbows perched atop his spindly knees, watching her over the arch they made.  “It’s been years—decades—since I’ve encountered someone immune to my sleeping sand. You’ve had this problem a long while, yes?”

Cecilia nodded, sitting up against the pillows at her back, gradually letting down her guard when she realized he wasn’t here to bring harm. “I can’t remember a day I’ve been able to sleep.”

“And how old are you now? Fourteen?”

“Fifteen to the day.”

“Amazing how I hadn’t been aware of you until now. Most of the youth ping the radar at ten years old.” The chair rocked, at the whim of gravity, as he straightened his posture. “Those three? The twins—Danny and his brother Joshua—have had it in their blood since birth, being kin, but little Tom has been in my care since he was eleven. He’s getting on in years, becoming far too busy with his own matters, wanting to return to a normal life. I’ve been aware a replacement—a successor—would soon be needed. This is wonderful timing.”

“What do you mean? Replacement for what?”

“Dear, do you truly think there is only  _one_  Sandman? There are far too many people for one man to keep up with. I’m also getting on in years.”

“Not ‘Dear.’ My name is Cecilia.” She squinted at Sandman. “And you aren’t even as old as my father.”

“In a physical sense, no, but my soul is old. I, too, wish to sleep someday. Well-deserved rest, I’d say.” He cracked his spine, as if to emphasize his point, and rolled his shoulders. “Dear— _Cecilia_ , have you ever stopped to wonder  _why_  exactly you find it impossible to fall asleep?”

“Every day. Obviously. It’s  _weird_. I can barely function like a normal person.”

“What if I told you it wasn’t, as you say,  _weird?_  That it’s just the way you are, the way you were meant to be born, and that there  _is_  reason for it?” Again, he steepled his fingers and looked pointedly at the dark shadows plaguing her eyes like ink smudges. “Always tired, but unable to rest. Fighting it only makes the condition worse. Living like a zombie, drifting from moment to moment, days and nights blurring into one another, separated only by a number on a calendar. I’m not the first Sand Man,” he said, as if it explained all. “And, if you don’t object to the idea, you could be the next.”

Cecilia watched him silently, mulling over his words. It was true that she’d always felt herself destined for something more, that this life wasn’t where she wanted to be, but she’d dismissed it as teenage angst and moved on. It was true that she’d grown tired of it all and purposely slacked off in school, having long since lost interest in the work, the people, and the place. She’d long since accepted her inability to sleep—and now, she knew there was no way to. It was a part of her.

“Some would call it making the best of a bad situation,” Sandman added, hoping to convince her.

“I wouldn’t call it bad. I’ve grown accustomed to it. I don’t know what I  _would_ do if  your sand managed to put me to sleep,” she admitted. “If this is something I can do, I’ll do it, Sandman.”

Sandman rose to his feet and offered his hand to her. She looked at it a moment, then up to his eyes, kind and genuine, also smudged by the same sleepless shadows, and reached out to grasp it in her own.

“Then we are happy to have you, Cecilia.”

If  _she_ couldn’t sleep, nothing would make her happier than to offer it to others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)  
>  This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).


	6. Not So Super After All

**writing-prompt-s @ tumblr:**

**You’re beginning to suspect the quiet guy in your office of being a Superhero. He constantly disappears with flimsy excuses just before a local vigilante is seen saving the day and he clearly has supernatural talents. As it turns out, he’s just a regular guy**

 

* * *

  

To tell the truth, coworkers come in and out of the office for various reasons throughout the day. It’s nothing special, nothing to really pay much attention to. Under normal circumstances, I really wouldn’t care, but this is a special case.

Because when he disappears, that  _asshole’s_  workload gets pushed onto  _me_ alongwith every single deadline, no leeway, no extensions—nothing.  _I’m_  the one who gets lectured by our jerk boss when something’s late, and he’s free to go on his merry way doing whatever the heck he does when he’s not working.

So, at some point, I started paying attention. Watched hour-by-boring-hour how he quietly remained in his cubicle across from mine, not often speaking to anyone aside from business calls to the big boss’s office and, even less often, personal calls on his own phone. Most of the time he sat there typing up spreadsheets, shooting off e-mails and, I guess, getting up to take a pee break or get coffee from the kitchen.

Once, when he was away, I noticed the police scanner on his desk, hooked up with the earphones I thought he used to listen to the Beastie Boys since he had their posters tacked up along his walls in a collage with mountain-climbing magazine pages, calendars and messy reminder notes. Not an uncommon object—people had them, sometimes, for whatever reason.

But he sure as hell didn’t need one in the office.

So I bought one, too, and eventually matched up his absentee excuses of picking up his dry-cleaning (those shirts were never pressed), picking up his dog from the groomer (he had a cat, going by the hair on those un-pressed shirts), taking lunch to his son because he was in a rush that morning and forgot (his cat  _was_  his kid, according to social media), or just going for a ridiculously long bathroom break, with the times of local incidents.  

Not just any incidents, like fender-benders or petty theft, but  _the_  incidents. The ones where our resident superhero and pain-in-the-ass to law enforcement everywhere, Right Hand of Justice, intervenes and saves the day. The first time, I could write it off as coincidence. The second, sure, maybe. But the third was stretching it and the fourth, fifth—and the entire month after, like clockwork, all matched up in a way that far surpassed just uncanny.

There’s no way this guy is a Clark Kent, or a Peter Parker or a Bruce Wayne. No way. Not the boring, quiet guy with shirts that are never ironed properly and hair that’s rarely, if ever, brushed. Not the guy who has awful taste in music and politely laughs at cat videos the elderly receptionist shows him at lunch. Not the guy who always turns in meticulous notes and never misses a deadline, unlike everyone else, and  _definitely_  not the guy who can balance fifteen cups of coffee for the whole office when he arrives late. Well,  _maybe_  that guy, because he’s definitely an exemplary employee to the point of being suspicious—when he’s here to do the work, at least—and it’s likely thanks to all that that the boss keeps him on the payroll.

But—could he really be…?

No. No way. His desktop background is a photo  _of_  the Right Hand of Justice—a really nice air-shot of our resident hero going in for a right strike, gauntlet glimmering in the sunlight. A rare, hi-res, un-watermarked shot I’d seen on popular magazines a few weeks back.

No hero would be  _that_  vain.

He doesn’t have the bearing for it. Where the Right Hand is confident, brazen to the point of being obnoxious, and punches like a heavyweight, this guy is sullen, meek, and avoids all conflict. And if he is such a stand-up citizen-slash-superhero, why does he have to shirk his responsibilities and drop them on me so damn often?

I have to know—have to prove that tiny doubt in my mind wrong—so I follow him on a day where we have a miraculously light workload and the boss is in a generous mood.

The crime scene is within walking distance. He makes a beeline for the parking lot and pops the trunk of his SUV, quickly exchanges his loafers for a pair of sneakers and grabs a backpack that looks suspiciously like it could hold an entire, familiar black costume and an iconic iron gauntlet, before taking off down the alley at a surprisingly fit jog.

He sticks to the back streets, out of sight, before ducking into a conveniently dark alley that has no out. If I’m going to get the truth, if I’m going to catch him, it’s definitely there.

I move in to corner him.

“You have so much explaining to do—”

But really, he doesn’t.

There’s a DSLR camera in his hands, equipped fully with everything needed to capture a superhero close-up and in action. Not only that, but in the short time it took me to cross the street and confront him, he’d traded his office attire for a pair of sweatpants and a tank top. Not a super hero get-up by any means.

He stows the prepped camera carefully away atop a pile of wadded-up clothes and zips the backpack slowly, eyes glued on me in surprise, shocked into silence.

“You’re a  _photographer?_ ” I say, but then it seems so obvious—enough that I feel stupid, but at least immensely relieved that he’s not a masked vigilante. “You’re a photographer. The one who slips the mainstream media all the best shots. You’re the Peter Parker to Spider-Man, just—without the Spider-Man part.”

“You  _followed_ me?—No, wait, what? Who did you think I was?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Did you really think I didn’t notice you slipping away each time the Right Hand appears?”

He shakes his head, looking antsy, and points his thumb over his shoulder. “Look, I gotta go or I’ll miss him. You won’t tell the boss I’m moonlighting, right?”

“It seems like a pretty good idea since all your work gets shoved on me anyway.”

“I  _am_  sorry about that. It’s just, a guy’s gotta pay off his student loans and we never get raises, so…”

“Really no surprise  _you_  never get a raise.”

He moves to his feet. “Ok, you’re mad. I get that. Can we talk about this later?”

“Yeah, we will. And we have a  _lot_  to talk about.”

“Deal. See you back at the office.”

That said, he gives a casual wave before jumping up on a dumpster, grabbing the fire escape railing and parkouring up to the rooftop in pursuit of a photo op.

Maybe he isn’t such a boring guy after all—but he’s definitely no superhero.


	7. Odd Painting

**daily-prompts: @ tumblr:**

**prompt 817**

**Something in the room with you has a presence. It can be an object such as a painting or an antique, or something alive such as a plant, a pet or a person. Describe that presence in as much detail as you can, using information from each of your senses.**

 

* * *

It felt alive.

I couldn’t remember when I hung it on the wall or who gave it to me—who framed it in that gold, faux-rococo border nicked with marks from the blades that crafted each swoop and curl.

Handmade. It was all handmade, I knew—and that was all that I knew—created in a long-drawn-out labor of love beginning with stapling the canvas to the wooden bars beneath and ending with sealing the hand-brushed gold leaf onto its frame, but not nearly enough, as it weathered over the years, peeling to reveal the wooden core.

The image itself was never quite clear. Every time I looked at it, head on or from the corner of my eye, as it was always somehow in my line of sight, the dusky paint seemed to change. To move, in a whirl, in a waterfall, in a steep drop as if it were reenacting the event its painter tried to capture in a frozen moment, but never quite able to settle on what exactly that scene was. At its default, it was an abstract smear of a time period that clashed with its frame.

There was no color in the subject matter—only monochromatic greys, blacks, muddy whites. Only the signature, blurry and obscure in the corner, scrawled out in a burning dark red. Once, I might have been able to read it, to remember a name, a face, but now it was nothing but a brand, a mark seared into the edge.

There was no plaque—only empty, dusty nail holes and a small, faded rectangle of pale, untouched wood.

 

* * *

  

Like its frame, sprawling with intricate dips and curves and corners, the brushstrokes on the surface were numerous. Smooth nubs where the paint was laid on impasto, strewn out like hills, and like a glaze where it was scraped away so sheer that the canvas could almost be seen and the woven texture felt stiff, dried, after so many years past.

Sometimes, if I closed my eyes and let my fingers wander across its surface, it felt like a face. High ridges of a brow, the empty sockets of eyes and of a lost nose, the hint of sharp cheekbones and blunt teeth. More than a face, it was a skull. Sometimes the paint was so smooth it felt like polished bone.

Then, it was craggy, rough, and large, like a cliff side, with edges raised for stones and indents of stray grass protruding from between.

Then, it was flat. Empty, like a void so deep I could fall through. Those times I tore my hand away and opened my eyes, but by then it was the same as ever, as if it never changed, with its hills and sheers ever present.

 

* * *

  

Sometimes, after I’ve touched it and didn’t wash away its feel, the food I ate tasted better. Like food fit for a queen, rich in flavors and fats with tender meats and fresh, crisp greens straight from a garden and not the stale, wilted plastic flavor of a microwave dinner.

Sometimes, it tasted like dirt. Dry, bitter powder too dense to swallow and sometimes too fine to cough out.  

Sometimes it was like thick, putrid black tar that caught in my throat.

 

* * *

 

It had a sound.

In the still of night, when the house was quiet, when I couldn’t quite drift to sleep, the sound of the sea drifted through the air. 

The steady ding of bell buoys and cresting ocean waves rising and returning to the water and seagulls whining and mewling in the clouds, until only the bell was left and it chimed deeper, heavier, spaced out evenly like a death knell tallying fallen soldiers.    

Then, silence. 

 

* * *

 

When it didn’t reek of pungent, aged lacquers and varnish and the peculiar dry, burning tang of raw sawdust, it smelled of death.

Like rotten, putrid meat and viscera of a dead rat that had been left to decay in the corner, unseen behind a cabinet, with that humid, heavy weight that commanded the room and ravaged through the nostrils until its sick-sweet-garbage cling lingered in the throat and choked like hot, bitter smoke from a char-burnt steak.

Like the cloying medley of embalming fluid and sweet lilac sprigs and the warm, earthy sunflowers of too much of a dead woman’s favorite perfume as she rested in her casket so her loved ones could give their final farewell.

Like it was the last thing I would ever smell.

 

* * *

 

There was no merit to keeping such an object—such a living, vivid presence—around.

I don’t know why it’s still hanging, but I could never quite bring myself to take it down.


	8. Home Sweet Hell

**writing-prompt-s @ tumblr:**

**Due to a loophole in the system, people can escape hell and get to heaven after death. You go to hell and all you see is Satan, just sitting there playing the harmonica. Everyone left him and now he’s all alone.**

 

* * *

Oh. Oh, jeez. This is the kind of situation you’d always dreaded and feared in a weird mixture between the two, but you never expected it to happen quite like this. Nah. You’d pictured it happening with your old bigot uncle or racist boss you’d chewed out before promptly getting fired—y’know, telling them with the utmost go-fuck-yourself tone that you’d “see them in hell” and then actually running into them in hell? And finding out they’re all alone and looking kind of pathetic and actually pulling at your heartstrings because you still have some of those in you despite all you’d done to end up in the pit.

Well, okay. You never thought you’d see the big red man himself in that exact situation.

“I thought I’d at least see Hitler here.” It’s the only thing you can think to say—because it’s the only reason you’d gone through with your condemnation to brimstone and eternal suffering before making use of the loophole and taking the fast lane to the pearly gates like everyone else.

No, you didn’t want to meet him. Didn’t want to greet him or shake his hand.

You wanted to punch him. Just once, right in the nose.

Maybe twice.

To your surprise, the somber harmonica tune comes to an abrupt halt and Satan answers. “No; we keep him in a box. Three boxes, actually, all locked up in different vaults.”

At least he didn’t get out with the rest of them. It’s a strange comfort, knowing that the worst of the worst are all probably still around, somewhere. Suffering.

“Oh…”

Add awkward to that mix of dread and fear.

Sure, you always knew you’d go to hell. You just never thought you’d meet actual Lucifer face-to-face. Much less speak to him—and in a situation that couldn’t be described as anything less than an awkward family reunion with an uncle who’s really just a close family friend to your estranged dad or a second cousin or third cousin twice removed you’d never met and only seen in photos.

He returns to his harmonica—and, boy, does that just amp up the discomfort. He’s the literal picture of Devil-may-care over there, sitting on a rock beside beds of simmering coals and charred skeletal remains, blatting out a blues rendition of Pity Party. He isn’t actually red, either—and he doesn’t have a tail, or horns.

Actually, you’re not entirely sure that some scrubby middle-aged knock-off Santa Claus wearing a red T-shirt that blatantly says “HAIL ME” in all black caps actually qualifies as Satan at all. It’s just, who else would still be here besides the real Prince of Darkness—no offense, Ozzy—himself?

“You’re still here?”

Again, he speaks to you. Probably because you’re still standing in the mouth of the cave that brought you to this expanse of a hellscape like you’re waiting for a hostess to seat you at a fancy café.

He waves the harmonica in his hand vaguely toward the cave ceiling and you look up at the dark stalactites briefly before returning your gaze to his. “Did you not get the memo? Everyone gets a free pass to the streets paved in gold. Heaven: population, everyone. Hell: just me.” The last sentence is punctuated with a grand, sarcastic shrug.

Yikes. Milton’s sympathy for the devil never prepared you for this. It’s like everyone forgot about his birthday party and left him to celebrate all alone even though they sent in RSVPs.

“Uh,” you begin oh-so eloquently as you take a few steps forward, careful to avoid what looks like a human skull half-buried in the silt. “Redemption’s never really been my thing. Besides, not really sure it can be called that when everyone gets it for free.” Something cracks under your heel. Yep, that was a spinal column.

“A glutton for punishment, then. Y’know, even those guys ran for the hills when they found out they could cheat the system.”

“It just doesn’t seem fair, is all.”

“That’s what they all say here. But…not quite in the same sense.”

You stop walking so you’re close, but no closer than a room’s length, to Satan.

It’s not like you’re expecting to get buddy-buddy with him, but the poor guy just seems so damn lonely without anyone to eternally torture. Or whatever it is he does. Maybe he just sits back and plays that harmonica while his demons do the dirty work. Speaking of, you hadn’t seen a single imp since your arrival.

“Did the demons get out, too?” you wonder.

“No. They’re on an extended vacation.”

Silence.

You say the first thing that comes to mind just to break it.

“I, uh, I always pegged you as a fiddler.”

“Harmonica’s more ergonomic.”

More silence.

It passes awkward and begins to verge on tense as he sits there watching you, sizing you up, and you’re almost afraid to tear your gaze away.

“You’re really gonna stay here?” he asks at last, drinking from a tumbler of what looks to be whiskey that seemingly materialized out of nowhere in the hand that didn’t hold the harmonica.

“Guess I am. I did the crime, so I’ll do the time.”

“Stupid,” he comments with raised eyebrows and a shake of his head, and you can’t argue with his choice of words. “Well, pull up a chair and get cozy. It ain’t hell without more sinners and it’s gonna be a while before more idiots like you show up.”

Something bumps the side of your leg and you see a fully-stocked bar and stool set that hadn’t been beside you before. With no complaint, you do as you’re told and sit.

“Bar’s open, but all we have is Jim Beam. At first they really did me a solid with that whole Devil’s Cut scheme but now there’s just too much of it.”

“I’m a vodka gal myself.”

“Then consider it a small taste of hell.”

There’s nothing more to be said after that. You buckle down and decide to wait, no matter how long it takes, because you’re not eager to get anywhere anytime soon and that get-to-heaven-free card would never expire. It wouldn’t hurt to keep the guy company for a while.  

And besides, that harmonica already sounds a little more upbeat.


	9. It's the Little Things

**writing-prompt-s @ tumblr**

**You’re a child trying to teach an immortal the joys of life**

 

* * *

 

Jenny was always a glass-half-full, eyes-wide-in-wonder type of kid. She drank in all of what life had to offer and lived in her own weird and wonderful way, observing and questioning but never waiting for someone else to answer and instead finding her own.  

For example, why do kids like to jump in puddles? What arepuddles? Why are they there? Who put them there?

She thought and she thought and finally came to the conclusion that someone either really sad or really sweaty lived up in the sky and didn’t bother using a hankie to keep dry, so those tears or sweat drops fell down on everyone’s heads.

As for why kids like her jumped in them…?

Well, she laughed when she did it, and they laughed when they did it, so it must be because it was fun.

She liked when people laughed and smiled and enjoyed the little things.

But the Strange Sad Mister sitting on the park bench wasn’t laughing or smiling. He didn’t look like he was enjoying himself at all, in fact. He was slouchy. Tired. Looked grumpy—like her grampa after he ate dinner and went to sit in his favorite old chair. Like when she wasn’t supposed to talk to him.

But he wasn’t her grampa, so she did.

“You’re sad. What’s wrong, Mister?” she asked, standing in front of him with all the authority of a child in a water-sprinkled raincoat and grass-covered galoshes.

“I’m too old is what, kid.”

He didn’t look at her, even when he spoke. But that was okay. She was used to being ignored. She just kept talking, to herself, to the clouds, to whatever or whoever would listen.

“How old are you?”

“Would you believe me if I said I was 224?”

It didn’t seem that strange to her. In dog years, her poodle Ralphie was almost a hundred but he still didn’t look old even if he’d started limping a little. Then again, he’d always looked the same to her.

“That’s not old.” Her nose scrunched up.

Finally, he looked at her, with the kind of face most adults looked at her with that let her know they didn’t take her seriously. But she was serious when she spoke her mind. Sometimes she thought theyweren’t serious  enough.

He ran a pale, bony hand across the blue-grey patches on his chin—the kind her dad woke up with and came home with and scratched her cheeks with when he scooped her up and kissed her.

“It’s more than a lifetime. I never thought it’d happen, but I’m really feeling forty now.”

“My gramma’s forty-six. She takes aerobics classes.”

“Bet she’s never been around the world three times.”

“She could go. It only takes eighty days.”

“That’s a book, kid.”

“Well, I don’t wanna go around the world anyway. I wanna go through it. I wanna see what all the people do. How they live and stuff.”

“I did that, too. Gets boring after the first time.”

“Maybe you didn’t do it right.”

“Really? Then how would you do it?”

She stepped away from the mister and stopped by a puddle half-flooding the grass lining the sidewalk, toes poised just at the edge. “It’s like puddles, Mister. You jump around and find the fun things. The things that make people laugh. The stuff that makes them happy. And it’ll probably make you happy.”

He watched with squinted eyes, like all the adults did when they tried to understand her. Unlike the others, he didn’t try too hard, or not at all. He tried just enough by shrugging his shoulders and standing from the bench to join her at the puddle.

“’Kay, I’ll humor you. Let’s see where you’re going with this.”

“You just gotta—” she raised her boot and stomped it hard into the puddle with a big grin and a heavy splash that bounced against their legs. “Then you’ll see what I mean.”

He stared down at the dark speckles on the lower halves of his pant legs and for a long, quiet moment she thought she did something bad and remembered too late that adults didn’t like getting their clothes dirty all the time, especially when they were that ugly tan color.

But he didn’t get mad. And the speckles didn’t matter because he jumped into the puddle and soaked the bottoms of his pants so they all blended in, now.  

She stepped back, letting him have the puddle to himself, letting him figure it out. He’d get it. She just knew he would.

He stood there for a full minute, she knew, because she counted the Mississippis in her head, with his hands on his hips and his eyes on the water that sloshed around his feet.

Then, he laughed.

Just a little, but enough.

“Y’know, I haven’t done that intentionally since I was a kid.”

He smiled.

Barely, but it was there.

“‘It’s like puddles,’ huh? Not bad. Maybe I was wrong.”

He enjoyed the little things.  

Even if it was just one, it was a start.

They were both happy enough with that. 


	10. The Reality of Making Wishes

**writing-prompt-s @ tumblr**

**You’ve managed to summon a genie and selfishly wish for 100 Million Dollars. Now you have to explain your sudden windfall to the relevant Tax Authorities, who have you cornered in a Government building.**

* * *

  

“In my defense, I told him not to put all of it in my bank account.”

And he didn’t. You just wished it hadn’t been split up into a $99,999,999.99 deposit in a small town bank and a penny in your hand—but unfortunately you wasted the first two on a strawberry soda and a McRib during its hiatus.  

So here you are, sitting in a too-tiny chair, left to clean up the mess with the paranormal tax bureau breathing down your neck, literally, as they drop a pile of paperwork in front of you, topped with a black ink pen.

“Be that as it may,” the elderly agent in a gingham shirt and beige cardigan sitting on the opposite side of the desk begins, shoving his glasses further up on his nose, “you must file the proper paperwork for your unexpected fortune…if you want to keep any part of it.”

He spoke like he had all the time in the world—but you know better. When his black suits dragged you in, the waiting line stretched beyond the room and quite a few doors out into the hallway. Maybe genies weren’t so rare after all. Maybe you shouldn’t have wished for something so stupid without specifying a little more.

“It becomes a problem when large sums are moved around like this—your local tax agency notices. The IRS notices. If we don’t handle it in a timely manner, it puts us at odds,” he continues. “So, have a quick read through and sign where required.”

“There’s like a hundred pages here.”

“You’re lucky. The average is three hundred. But you were wise with your wishes. Food items are always freebies and don’t need to be reported because they’re assumed necessities. Monetary wishes aren’t the most difficult to deal with, either, as long as you file paperwork. You wouldn’t believe how many innocent but ignorant people have been arrested for failing to comply.”

“Then what’s the most difficult?”

“Why, when people attempt to lengthen their lifespans.”

“Attempt?”

“Please sign the papers.”

There are three suits standing behind you and more outside. You don’t even know where you are—and running once was what got you here in the first place, with a bag over your head. 

You oblige.

The old man accepts the stack of papers when you slide them across the desk, flips through the pages to double-check you hadn’t missed a line, but peers over his glasses as he reaches the final page. “Everything looks in order. Would you like to make a donation to our organization?”

“Um—wait, how much do I get to keep?”

“All of it, minus our yearly service fee of five hundred dollars. Would you like to make a donation?” he asks again.

“Uh, sure? How does five thousand sound?”

He makes a note.

“Good enough. Your first check will arrive in the mail within the next two to five business days and deposits will be made to five separate bank accounts biweekly thereafter.” He slides a legal envelope your way. “Here is your information. If you find that you need an advance or have the sudden desire to win a small lottery, visit the loan office on Mulberry Street and ask for Todd.”

You wait for him to say more, but it seems he’s done, already calling his secretary for the next person in line.

You’re forced to stand and pulled to the door, but before it closes behind you and the suits, you hear:

“Oh, and remember, if you tell anyone anything, you lose it all.”

All of this is a small price to pay, but like they say, nothing in life is really free.  


	11. Not Too Old to Survive

**writing-prompt-s @ tumblr:**

**The world is teetering on the brink of destruction. Only 2 people remain alive, both of them old ladies. They are face to face with the eldritch creature that has singlehandedly destroyed their planet. And in its terrifying presence…they make cheeky small talk about what brought them here.**

 

* * *

  

Smoke, fire and brimstone among a destroyed mosaic of cracked concrete, overturned cars and crumbled houses was all that remained of the world, now.

No more idle grocery shopping.

No more knitting.

No more afternoon tea.

No more gossip.

No more _family_.

No one but them.

Mildred, the stoop-backed spinster old woman from down the street who’d been spurned as a “crazy old cat lady” more times than she could count, armed only with a rainbow polka-dot print umbrella held tight in her bony hands, and Maude, the sweetest and smallest old woman in the whole neighborhood, renowned for her unrivaled baked goods and many grandchildren, clutching nothing more than a rolling pin at the end of the world—face-to-face with the abominable creature that wrought that hell.

All tentacles and black mist and gurgling, rotten flesh—a great hulking mass of muck that sucked in the bodies and bones of their loved ones, one by one.

“That’s a lovely umbrella you’ve got there, Mildred,” Maude said through the soot polluting the air, piling up in her lungs and coating her tongue worse than the cigarettes she once loved, but still managing a polite smile and a compliment because she’d be damned if she let the devil himself kill her manners.

“Why thank you, Maude. Half-price at Target! Can you believe that?” Mildred smiled through the holes of absent teeth, having lost her dentures long ago. Once, she would have cared, been too self-conscious to smile and only sneer, but kindness was never to be taken for granted and she’d been deprived of it for too long, only to find it here, at the end of everything. But never too little too late.

The mountain of ichor and flesh and all that is unholy and ungood oozed forward inch-by-terrifying-inch as they stood on the only sidewalk that remained untouched, like a holy land, and they held their ground, waiting to fight to their last moment.

“I only wanted to go out and buy some flour today,” Maude admitted, shifting her weight and cursing her bad hip as she tested the weight of the rolling pin in her hands and likened it to the hammers she held during World War II. “Not find Armageddon.”

“And I only wanted to find a stupid senile old cat. You’ll get your flour,” Mildred assured, shouldering her umbrella like a baseball bat, muscle memory from youthful days spent on the softball diamond.

“I hope so. I promised so many batches of cookies…and now they’ll only go to graves.”

“Will you save a batch for me, Maude?”

“Of course, Mildred.”

Both knew it would never come to that, but they’d hold to their words in heaven.

Even if hell itself swallowed them whole.


	12. Her Name Is Ethel and She Has a Story

**corvidprompts @ tumblr:**

**“You know what the say about glass houses.”**

**“Oh, Dear, I let all my secrets go a long time ago. You have nothing to hold against me.”**

 

* * *

  

To be truthful, this is one of the reasons Ethel no longer belongs to the church.

It isn’t that they’re all bad—just this one, the only one in the town, the one that had firmly established its roots and shut down or devoured the rest, insisting that their exclusive and misguided puritanical way of Christ is the One and Only Way.

It isn’t that she interacts with them much at all, these days, keeping to herself at home except for the rare few times trips outside are required. But with them being the way they are, involved in the community regardless of whether or not that community _wants_ them around, it means run-ins are inevitable.

Today’s run-in happens to be at the cemetery, during a biannual visit to Charles’ grave.

One of the church elders had a burial scheduled in a plot only three rows away, one she’d known and hadn’t particularly liked, had butted heads with more often than not back in the day, and she can’t say she misses him but she does hope he manages to find forgiveness and redemption at the pearly gates. Or burn in hell, if that’s how it goes.

One of his daughters, the only one local, the only one who stayed, stands silently, alone, at the gaping hole of the burial plot, and Ethel watches from her spot in front of Charles’ angel-wing tombstone, wondering if she can find it in herself to offer condolences, because no matter how she feels about the dead man, grief for the ones who remain is still grief and kindness is a virtue. Still, as the woman—Barbara, if she remembers correctly, once pretty, always smiling, now a bit droopy at the edges, harsh and glaring and always bullheaded—turns her way and meets her eyes, her hands tighten on the cool curve of her cane, trembling slightly.

“I didn’t see _you_ at the wake. Did you not get your invitation?” There is nothing but hateful acid in her scathing tone, masquerading as airy nonchalance.

Ethel smiles. To hell with virtue.

“Oh, why, of course I did. And I put it in the dumpster where it belonged.”

Barbara’s eyebrows shoot up and she looks as if she’s been slapped, but really Ethel doesn’t know what she expects to hear. “Alright. He deserved that. But don’t just stand there lookin’ all high and mighty. You know he did a lot of good for this town. At least pay your respects while you’re here.”

“I suppose you could call that ‘good’ in a terribly skewed and naïve way, Dear. But you are young. I won’t hold it against you.” She looks down at her late husband’s grave, at the fresh lemongrass—his favorite for tea, which he used to love to brew, though she never had the taste for it and still doesn’t—left at the foot of the stone, and sighs. “No, I don’t think I have any respects to pay. None at all. There are some things that can only be forgiven by our God above.”

“What do _you_ know about God, old woman?” Barbara takes a threatening step forward, but no more than that. Perhaps because her expensive heels don’t grip well on this uneven, half-muddy, graveled ground, perhaps because she thinks better of it.

“It isn’t about what I know about God. It’s about what I know of your family. Why your older sisters no longer visit, for example.”

Barbara barks—yes, that’s the only way to describe it—a snarling, derisive laugh. “If I were you I’d watch my mouth. You know what they say about glass houses.”

“Oh, Dear, I let all my secrets go a long time ago. You have nothing to hold against me.”

“No, I guess not. Your reputation’s bad enough already because of that. And now you’re a lonely old crone no one cares about. Nothing you do for this town can make up for it.”

“If it’s something I can’t do, time will take care of it well enough.” At this, she stares pointedly to the open grave, where the dead old man’s burnished coffin is surely strewn comfortably with flowers and memories and tears, if not only water droplets from an earlier rainfall.

Soon, it will be buried, as all things eventually are.  

“I hope the _devil_ takes you home.” Barbara always has to have the last word, and Ethel lets her take it, even as she spits at her feet, missing by a mile and instead hitting the back of Charles’ tombstone, as she hobbles away on those expensive shoes, making up for her woes in wealth.

“If that’s how it’s meant to be, it will be.” She doesn’t say it to Barbara, but more to herself, as she pulls out a lacy handkerchief to scrub the stain away before stopping, setting it back into her cardigan pocket, and looking to the gray sky that promises rain for the remainder of the day.

Time will take care of it well enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of playing around with Ethel's backstory, pre-Todd.


	13. The Aberline Files, Entry #1

Strange occurrences are a dime a dozen in Aberline.

They don’t necessarily fall under the paranormal category, but I consider them to be little curiosities all the same, just ever-so-slightly out of place—able to be looked right over by any but those who are agonizingly bored enough to curb-watch their neighbors, or those looking for inspiration to write something and keep up with their self-inflicted skill of choice.  

I guess I’m the latter, even if a balanced mixture of both of those things brings me to this series of accounts.

Now, as a disclaimer, as bizarre as these tidbits from around town may sound, this is not fiction.

I repeat: This is not fiction.

 

* * *

 

**Entry #1**

**3:05 p.m., Saturday**

 

* * *

 

It’s hot outside. Not as searing as the big Texas summer heatwave to come, but enough to feel the heat seething out of the tarmac; too hot for bare feet, children and canine alike, to stick around for too long in one place, so they run like hell itself is on their heels. The neighbors who like to hike up their water bills have fancy sprinkler system rigs churning full-blast despite the fact that each individual droplet fizzles and evaporates on contact with the ground. The grass is green, and full—not thirsty. Even the dirt rejects it, and the murky runoff chases the fleeing children down the street, flooding out from the gutters and deep into the crevices between the gravel, sinking down, deep, deep down, to nurse the devil.

There are no sidewalks—no buffer between those unfriendly lawns and punishing streets.

It’s too hot for a great deal of cars to pass by, even with one of the most high-trafficked lanes running perpendicular to this corner lot where I sit, watching, witnessing the rubber tires sticking, melting, leaving muddy tracks behind until nothing but rickety rims and hubcaps remain, sparking against the dry gravel with the drivers none the wiser. Soon, the tire tracks melt into the road and _no one_ is any the wiser.

It’s too hot for dads hiding in baseball caps and sleeveless T-shirts and chrome-reflective sunglass lenses like insect eyes to tend to their overgrown and prospering yards, though moms brave the temperatures and don big, floppy sunhats to tend to their gardens and propagate future foliage fated to meet a lawnmower blade one day or another. Of course, it’s always an accident—that’s what they say. But who can really believe it, when a good number of the block’s small dogs and cats conveniently go missing after wandering into particularly well-grown ivy patches with only abandoned collars to prove they ever existed at all? _Someone_ has to fight the good fight, even at the risk of angering a wife or two.

Which brings me to the leading star of today’s sighting.

It begins as a strange noise, just a buzz in the ears, like a determined fly dead-set on securing a trophy as _Most Annoying Insect in Aberline_ , or an indecisive mosquito unsure of just which part of the ear to feed on. Personally, I’d go for the neck if, _if_ , I, specifically, subsisted on an all-blood diet, but that aside, the noise isn’t an insect at all.

Somehow, despite the heat, despite the sizzling street swallowing up most wheels unfortunate enough to travel through, an old man—the dad kind, with the billed, threadbare hat pulled low and the sleeveless T-shirt and the same unsettlingly deflective sunglasses that conceal human eyes from sight and from seeing—drives along, hugging the gutters, taking up the entire designated cycling lane, on his trusty orange-painted steed: the riding lawnmower.

There’s no grass in sight. It’s important to mention because the purpose, or the expected purpose, of a riding lawnmower is to tame wild grass and to cut it back into subservience, especially when it grows out of hand and begins to swallow particularly large acreages and remove them from the landscape forever. It isn’t a primary means of travel.

Is it…?

No. Definitely not.

He obeys local road rules. There’s a stop sign, and he stops. He draws a bare, sun-reddened, wrinkled arm across his sweating brow, but his hat and sunglasses don’t budge an inch. Only the half-cigarette clamped between his teeth bobs up and down as he takes a drag, though it leaves no smoke behind. The end doesn’t seem to be lit.

It’s all too easy to see from where I sit, and he’s within earshot, so I have to ask. I have to know, before he looks both ways and crosses the street and I lose my chance, as all chances eventually are.

“Sir, why are you riding that lawnmower?”

He looks to me. It’s difficult to tell if he _sees_ me through those lenses, but I have to assume he does. For seconds. Minutes. Not speaking. Not breathing.  

“There’s no grass,” I say, pointing out the obvious, pointing literally to the gravel beneath him. Although there _is_ grass around, always around, creeping, watching, waiting. Just not beneath that lawnmower. It rumbles, hungry, as it remains stalled and still.

The man stares. Minutes pass. The grass waits. Listens. The lawnmower purrs.  

An old truck trudges past, tires sticking to the pavement, peeling off the rims. The driver doesn’t pay the lawnmower, man, or melted tires, any mind. The bald child sitting in the bed of the truck watches me, until they both drive around the curve, to a known dead end. They don’t come back.  

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there,” he says, breaking his long stretch of silence, but the silence seems preferable to this revelation. Then, he looks away, checks the intersection once more with a craning neck and a sneer, unlit cigarette bobbing, and sets off on his way, mowing the unseen.

 

* * *

 

**Further observations**

 

* * *

 

It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him, but like an urban legend left to memory, I still hear his lawnmower’s engine mingling with the locusts and cicadas during the hottest part of the day, and sometimes in the dead of night when the dark is all too quiet.

_Someone_ has to fight the good fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
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	14. On Beauty

**Your shadow is growing jealous of your reflection.**

( Prompt from [plotsandpromptsforall](https://plotsandpromptsforall.tumblr.com/) )

 

* * *

 

The morning routine begins the same way, every day.

Before faces are even washed, before foundation considered, they bicker.

“Another day faced with beauty,” says Shadow, cast behind you on a plain white wall filled with cabinets, made ever stronger by the five bright lights blaring before you to better illuminate the bathroom space. On days when her silhouette is darker, her opinions are also stronger. And so is her whining. If her form could droop, it probably would. And it does, as you lean over the sink to scrub cleanser into your cheeks before rinsing it away.

“More like faced with the back of our dear person,” says Reflection, massaging dewy moisturizer beneath her eyes to soothe away the dusty shadows and slight puffiness brought from lack of sleep. She is vain, and she doesn’t so much as flick her eyes toward the shadow on the wall, focused solely on her task of finding blemishes and imperfections to cover for the day.

Like your shadow, your reflection is also bound by your actions, repeating even the tiniest movements you make as you reach for bottles and creams and powders lined up across the marble countertop. But the words—the words, they speak themselves, and you are the unfortunate middleman. Mostly, you roll your eyes and remain silent because this usually only lasts through the morning. When the two aren’t in a space together, they usually keep quiet, too. And when they are? That’s what headphones and music are for.

“No, I  _can_  see, you know,” Shadow claims. “I can see every color, every single hair, every eyelash, every pore. You are the shape of me complete and I am nothing but a blank slate of a sloppy, lumpy form.”

_Hey now_ , you want to intervene, but you know it’s something you think of as true on your worst days. At times, you wonder if these two are simply your own struggling thoughts recycled and spat back out at you, pinioning you between the loathing and vanity born from the need for society’s acceptance. Only at times, because their back-and-forth is too real and they have minds of their own, like Peter Pan’s shadow and the evil queen’s mirror on the wall.

“Jealous?” Reflection taunts, a smirk on her lips as she smoothes a light pink lip balm over them that smells like fake strawberries and oil.

Shadow nods, hands on hips, as you consider your foundation palette for the day. You never can quite find a tone that matches your skin perfectly, so mixing two, sometimes three, has to do. “I’m not ashamed to say yes. I want to be filled in. I want to have eyes. I want the color of our lips and our fingernails. You have all of that beauty for free.”

“Beauty? Please. If anything,  _I’m_  jealous of  _you_ , you silly thing. You’re free of the pressure imperfection brings. You have no scars to hide, no acne, no crooked teeth. You have no need to pluck the hairs between your eyebrows or seal the makeup on your face to hold everything together.” Reflection purses her lips as the foundation is dotted all around and smoothed and patted in with a damp blending sponge. You’re no make-up pro, but it does well enough.

“I am not beautiful,” Shadow says, and she believes it, deep down. “You can’t be jealous of me.”

“Yes you are,” Reflection counters, and she believes it, too. “And yes I can.”  

“No, you—”

“ _Yes_ , I—”

Their words overlap and the sound grates on your ears.  

Today, just the one day, you choose to reply and put an end to the argument that took a strange turn into the sentimental. 

“Agreed. We’re all beautiful no matter what we look like. Even if we aren’t, who really cares? This is who we are and we have to live with it.” You check your face for streaks, making sure it’s all covered, and decide it’ll have to do. If there’s a flaw left over that bothers someone, they'll just have to get over it.

“And for what it’s worth,  _I’m_  jealous of  _both of you_  because y'all don’t have to exist in a three-dimensional, physical form.”

To this, they have no response. Blessed silence at last.


	15. The Adventures of Todd and Granny, Part III

**(Alternative series title: “I Saw Granny Ethel with the Devil”)**

**Unexpected Guest**

 

* * *

 

 

Today is a good day for Todd—though they mostly are, as of late.

He’s heard people, mostly the damned, mention the “good ol’ days”; these must be his in the making.

By the end of the afternoon, he’s improved greatly on his stitch counting and his triple crochets and, especially, in mastering how to properly turn his piece so his rows are no longer frustratingly mismatched. It’s still a work in progress, but Granny Ethel’s lessons are wonderful as always. Next up is learning how to incorporate another yarn color for bright, fun designs—or in his case, dark and atmospheric—after their midday break of coffee and desserts, of course. Because as fond as she is of his preferred black yarn, she insists he has to branch out from solids eventually. There’s no growth if one always remains in their comfort zone.  

Instead of coffee, however, Granny Ethel is in the mood for tea—and just as with everything else he’s inherited from her lifestyle, the art of brewing tea presents a difficult learning curve.

She doesn’t take her tea from grocery store boxes and tiny sachets—she doesn’t buy those in bulk because they only go to waste and sit stale in the cupboards. When she drinks tea at all (that is, when she isn’t in the mood for espresso), it must be fresh, and from organic, homegrown ingredients. For this reason, tea isn’t an impulsive choice of drink. It must be planned. It’s another lesson she’s instilled in him during his stay, and, the week before, they’d spent an entire morning identifying each of the specific herbs thriving in the back garden, and which parts were best used in which blends. Of course, he is well acquainted with the rosemary and sage, the lavender and thyme, the basil and juniper, and the chamomile and anise. But lemongrass is new, and it grows in abundance in the planters set on the windowsills.

Because it’s such a novelty, he chooses it as the main note and adds in chamomile blossoms to offset the citrus tang. It’s a challenge to balance it just right so neither is too overwhelming, nor too bland, and he doesn’t expect this to be a great attempt, but Granny Ethel is honest with her evaluations and generous with encouragement. There’s also the matter of heating the water to a proper boil, and not overheating the mix, then steeping it for the right amount of time…

Well, there’s a reason he never apprenticed to a potion brewer and enlisted in the debt collecting department for souls instead.

But for Granny Ethel, he tries his best.

The kitchen counter, small as it is, is a difficult surface to work with. The kitchenware is tiny in his hands, and if he isn’t careful when he moves, his horns scrape the ceiling above, sending a fine powder of popcorned drywall down like snow out of season.

Water sloshes out of the kettle and spills across the granite, some trickling down onto the tiles, and the small, fragile jar he mixes the herbs in cracks beneath his claws, but doesn’t shatter. He scoops out the blend with care and packs it loosely into a metal tea strainer, but even so, most of it ends up scattered across the counter. Grass and petals bounce and dive out of the tea ball as he fumbles to secure the latch, and by the end of the struggle, only a small portion of what he’d placed remains within.

He tries once more—and again. And once more, just until there’s an appropriate measurement of herbs trapped inside. Then, ever-so-carefully, he sets the tea ball into Granny Ethel’s favorite tea cup (the special one, decorated with playful kittens and ribbons and an elaborate, golden cursive “C”) and pours boiling water over it to steep.

A freshly-baked apple pie waits on the small, round dining table, taken fresh from the oven only an hour before. A sliver of the circle has been removed for tasting—and it is delicious. Slicing two pieces of the pie is a far simpler task than brewing tea, and Todd makes sure that Granny Ethel’s piece dwarfs the plate it sits upon, because she deserves the best. And bigger is better.  

The two dessert-filled plates sit across from each other, equidistant, on the table, on finely crocheted doilies that serve as placemats. The pastel yellow tablecloth covering the table is riddled in fragile, embroidered daisies and winding leaves and it screams  _spring_  despite the heat of summer weighing heavy in the air. He’ll have to find another to replace it with, soon. Maybe one with sunflowers.

As he considers this, the doorbell rings.

It isn’t something he thinks twice about anymore. Not since their new friend from the supermarket made it habit to participate in their weekly Yahtzee or domino nights, and their bi-weekly trips to the bingo hall.

Neither does Granny Ethel—he can hear her call to the door from the living room, remaining in her seat, “Come in, dear! The door is unlocked.”

But it isn’t a game night, or a bingo day.

It’s midafternoon on a Tuesday and the only thing scheduled for the remainder of the day is a rerun of one of their favorite TV dramas about two women in law enforcement.

The door creaks open—it’s something Todd’s been meaning to fix, though the home is sorely lacking in tools and hardware necessary for the job. If there was hinge lubricant around, it would fix it right up, but he may have to resort to cooking oil as a quick fix.

Curiosity gets the better of him. Carefully balancing the teapot and teacup in both clawed hands, he approaches the carpeted hall between the kitchen and living room to take a peek at the mystery guest. But multitasking, pouring the tea and looking at the same time, proves to be a mistake and in hindsight something he should have avoided.

The tea, so carefully prepared and brewed, overflows from the fine china cup, spills onto the matching, chipped saucer and steadily splatters the floor. Todd doesn’t even move, doesn’t blink, as it saturates the floral rug beneath his claws. The drips are the only thing moving in this scene removed from time, and all else stands still, even the dust in the air.

Neither of them expected a guest today—neither of them  _ever_  expected  _this_  particular guest. Mostly because one believes he is already present, and one believes he is too selfish to ever even have the passing thought to visit, much less call or write.

“Oh no, Todd, the  _carpet!_  Hurry now, dear, hurry, go and—no,  _I’ll_  go and grab a towel, I know where the cleaning ones are!”

Granny Ethel is the first to break free from the frozen atmosphere—though she refuses to acknowledge anything aside from the growing stain on the living room floor. Todd quickly rights the white china teapot hanging from his claws and holds his other hand steady to prevent the flooded teacup from dripping more hot tea to the puddle below. It doesn’t work—seems to make it worse, actually. It’s a vain task, so he gives up and cradles it all in his large hands, doing his best to keep the remaining tea contained in his palms. 

“‘ _Todd?’_ ” says the clean-cut young man standing in the open doorway, a jarring juxtaposition to the black clothes and heavily-blackened eyes and metal accessories from familiar photographs—but even in the full Sunday suit, those downturned, bright eyes are unmistakable, and they are fixed unblinkingly on Todd’s decidedly un-Todd-like form. “Who are  _you?_ ”

_I’m you, but better_ , doesn’t seem like an appropriate response, no matter how true it is. Todd the demon holds his silence and doesn’t break the gaze, because it feels like a challenge.

This man is the  _human_  Todd, and he’s come to visit.

 

* * *

 

Today is a....strange day, for Demon Todd.

Tea time is no longer a pleasant, cozy time. Not with their extra guest, seated between them at the small round table with a (small) slice of pie of his own and an untouched glass of water—no tea, no coffee, for him. He’s tall—a bit too large for the small table, though Demon Todd is one to talk. But being who he is, it’s only natural he dwarfs everything around him. This Human Todd, though… just what is his excuse?

Granny Ethel hasn’t spoken a single word to the young man the entire time and her silence is strange. She’s usually such a chatty, friendly woman.

So they eat in silence—but not Human Todd. He sits still, staring with narrowed, mean eyes, on edge. But not entirely frightened, like the general public tended to be in his presence. It’s odd. Perhaps it runs in the family.

As he sits in the silence, he wrings his hands together—clean hands, like one unaccustomed to frequent physical labor. No dirt in sight underneath his nail beds. Not even flecks of old nail polish hinting at remnants of a secret grunge lifestyle never quite grown out of. Whatever he has grown into certainly isn’t that of someone who toils in the underworld or its culture, like his counterpart.

No, rather, it reeks of money. Given—not earned. And possibly taken, too.

Demon Todd has an inkling of why Human Todd is here. After all, he didn’t come alone. Accompanying his arrival were three large, expensive suitcases, stuffed full. Still sitting in the living room, out of place.

At long last, as the last crumb falls, Granny Ethel speaks.

“Well, dear, speak up, speak up. What brings you here?” she asks the young man as she pats at the corners of her wrinkled mouth with a cloth napkin, and she avoids speaking his name despite the fact that she  _must_  know who he is.

The words, though, aren’t entirely conversational. With the three of them sitting at the small table, it more resembles a conference—no, a hearing. Especially when she pulls up the thick, round spectacles hanging from crocheted strings around her neck and sets them atop the bridge of her nose to better see the new visitor.

Human Todd’s eyes drift warily from the long, sharp claws tapping silently on the tabletop, and he clears his throat before looking to his grandmother, wearing a sickly sweet and fake smile as he does. “Well, it’s been so long. So, so many years, Gran. I’ve missed you, see. Dad was in the wrong, and he treated you terribly. I understand that now.”

“Ah, Arthur…” she replies faintly, setting the napkin down on the table and folding her hands across her lap. Yes—she knows  _exactly_  who Human Todd is. But the behavior is still so unlike her. No joy, no sweet smiles. All gone, drained, as empty as the teacup set in front of her, but not even leaving the dregs of what she once was behind.

Demon Todd briefly considers kicking Human Todd to the curb.

“He said awful things about you, and I listened. I came here by way of apology, to take care of you, but,” briefly, and not without a flinch, his eyes wander to Demon Todd, and linger on the dark, hand-crafted shawl perched on his spiny shoulders, “it seems like you’ve already gotten that under control.” His gaze lingers, fixed in a poorly-concealed grimace. “Who are you, by the way?”

Granny Ethel speaks for him, and for a moment her cheer returns. “This is my wonderful grandson, Todd! He’s such a polite young man. And it’s true, life has certainly become easier, and better, since he arrived and helped out so, so much.”

Demon Todd can only nod, but if he could smile without it looking like several rows of craggy, sharp teeth gnashed together in malicious threat, he would.  

Human Todd wrenches his gaze away, and pulls at the collar of his pristine white shirt. His hairline shines with sweat, and it isn’t due to the cozy temperature Granny Ethel prefers to keep in the house.

“Then…who am  _I?_ ” he ventures quietly, eyebrows furrowed in an odd mixture of confusion and shame. Ah, the bafflement of mortals.

“Why, dear, I couldn’t say. In fact, I’d say that depends entirely on you! Actions speak louder than words, don’t you know.”

The sweat creeps down his temples, shining in the faint light. “Right, I…I see.”

“But if you’d like a name…I would insist on Theodore. What do you think, Todd, dear?”

Demon Todd nods once more, pleased by the way the conversation unsettles the man. In fact, the situation is much like naming a pet. Although something fluffy and small, or covered in feathers, would be preferable to this sweaty human.

“Theodore it is, then!”

Human Todd—now, Theodore—switches his gaze between them, fingers tugging at his shirt collar once again. “Alright. Theodore it is,” he agrees, as if, perhaps, it has been his name all along, and using a shortened form of it had been a way to rebel, once upon a time. A memory lost to time. A privilege denied. “I guess I deserve that.”

“Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way, Theodore, dear, how long are you planning on staying? I must warn you, showing up unannounced means Todd and I haven’t been able to prepare for guests. I’m afraid that means you and Todd will have to share a room until we’re able to make other arrangements.”

Theodore gulps audibly, Adam’s apple bobbing. He refuses to meet Demon Todd’s—just  _Todd_ , again, something of a victory—eyes. “Y-yes Gran.”

“And you must be aware of the house rules. Everyone contributes in any way they’re able.”

“Actions speak louder than words, right?” Theodore asks, shaky fingers reaching for the glass of water set in front of him. Not quite making it and falling still on the table, instead.

“That’s right, dear.” Granny Ethel smiles, at last. Full of her old joy again, as she should be. Renewed. Her eyes, large and owlish behind the clouded lenses, turn to Todd. “Now, Todd, won’t you be a dear and show our new house guest to his room?”

Todd looks to the dirty dishes on the table, caught between wanting to tend to them before taking care of any other, less important, duties.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the dishes.”

Well, Granny Ethel’s word is law.

He rises to his feet—careful, always careful. Barely resisting the urge to let the ends of his horns graze the ceiling above Theodore so he gets a nice, healthy dose of powdered scrapings on his painstakingly slicked-back hair.

The man follows, cautiously, and keeps three steps behind as Todd leads him out of the kitchen and into the living room to scramble for his luggage, then down the hallway to the guest room, not making a peep, and not even stepping hard on the floors just to startle his counterpart a little, because one, it would flatten the carpets into ugly tracks, and two, Granny Ethel would want him to be a good host.

Theodore knows who—what—he is. Yet even when Granny Ethel is out of sight and out of earshot, he doesn’t question it. He simply goes about his business and does his best to ignore the hulking beast standing in the doorway, watching.

Though, between the two of them, Todd isn’t sure which one is the real monster.

It’s a conversation for another day.


	16. The Adventures of Todd and Granny, Part IV

**(Alternative series title** **: “I Saw Granny Ethel with the Devil”)**

******Yard Work**

 

* * *

 

 

Of the many lessons instilled in him by Granny Ethel, the one that Todd knows best, is that good, hard, honest work keeps the devil at bay.

It’s only a saying. But he takes it to heart, if only to reassure himself that his brethren don’t know or care where he’s disappeared to for the past few months.

Really, they  _shouldn’t_  care. They’re often called away and sent on wayward tasks by superiors and skilled summoners alike. Sometimes for  _years_.

Todd wouldn’t mind living like this for a decade, or two.

The Human Todd— _Theodore_ —though, doesn’t seem to hold the same morals.

“ _Ugh_ —why won’t the damn thing just start?” he gripes at the old push lawn mower, rusted and peeling with age, as he yanks the motor’s rip cord for the third time in a row—unsuccessful. Not even a stutter. The heel of his shoe bounces off of its faded red deck with a dull, metallic  _thump_  as he tries to kick it into submission, but hitting machinery never inspires it to suddenly, magically work.

It isn’t that it doesn’t have gas—Todd has made sure it’s well taken care of in its old age and properly filled. It isn’t that it’s missing its grass-catcher bag, either. That’s another issue to be met further down the road.

Ultimately, it’s just Theodore’s poor luck and impatience. And a dirty carburetor, perhaps.

He’ll let him struggle obliviously for a few moments more—but only a few. Granny Ethel’s lawn is overgrown with a wily mass of green-yellow grass up to his shins, in desperate need of taming. But for now, he just shakes his head and minds his business at the stone-bordered garden on the other end of the lawn, getting his claws dirty pulling stray weeds from between herbs and taking notes on which ones need pruning.

More importantly, he only allows Theodore to swear so loudly because Granny Ethel is currently absent.

Their friend Sam from the grocery store kindly drove her to her routine check-up at the local clinic earlier that afternoon, though they probably would have walked if it wasn’t in the next town over.

Being who she is, he’s  _still_  a bit surprised they didn’t.

Another kick echoes off the metal body of the lawn mower—followed quickly by a strangled yell and the sound of something heavy— _someone_ —hitting the grass with a sharp rustle. A soft landing.

Maybe he’s lucky after all.

Todd still ignores him, and pauses briefly to admire the ruby red glare of a ladybug landing on the back of his dark hand. Even as the swishing of disturbed grass only grows closer, until a distorted human shadow blocks the bright patch of sun reflecting off of the ladybug’s fragile shell.

Theodore clears his throat.

The ladybug’s wings unfurl in a flutter and it flits away, following the wind.

Again, he clears his throat to garner attention—and Todd ignores him. But he does keep him in the fringe of his peripheral vision.

“ _No help at all_.” He huffs out an insulted breath as he stomps away, unkempt, sweaty blond hair flouncing with each step. It must be the hardest he’s worked out in  _ages_ , to get so worked up.

But Theodore doesn’t return to the lawn mower—this time he heads toward the far corner, to the small brown shed topped with a patchy, bright yellow roof. Unpainted, unfinished. It’s something Todd will take care of at an appropriate time. Granny Ethel’s birthday, perhaps…though she hasn’t mentioned it just yet.  

The doors rattle as he gives them a shake—locked, naturally. He sets his hands on his hips and hangs his head in defeat. Bends down and almost collapses in the grass, ready to give up, but stops. Frozen, as if struck by inspiration. His head tilts dramatically as he peers toward something in the corner, resting in the shadows between the shed wall and the fence.

Todd has to admit, this interests him greatly—he turns his head to watch, but doesn’t move from his spot beside the herb garden.

Theodore straightens up and slinks toward the shadowed nook, reaching a hand out into the blackness. And when he draws it back, a scythe handle is gripped in his palm.

It’s dusty. Rusted and bent at the edges, probably dull—and complete with another hand grip protruding from the main rod like a functional tool. Made of old wood; reliable wood. Hand-carved. Theodore wheezes out a laugh of disbelief and quickly turns. Todd can’t turn around fast enough and catches the brunt of the victorious grin wrinkling his face. Knowing, and so  _triumphant_. The absolute epitome of foolish  _Pride_.

He doesn’t even know what he’s holding, certainly. Not with those pristine, clean hands that have only been pricked by a splinter today.

Todd rises to his feet, to his full height. There’s no need to heed ceilings—not outdoors. When he takes the first step, Theodore’s smile crumbles. He clutches the scythe to his chest and takes a step back, shoulders tense. He holds the eye contact just to spook him. Just a bit.

But he doesn’t walk to  _him_. He reaches the lawn mower and kneels to pass a hand over its motor, clearing it of whatever issue remains.

Ah. Like he thought. It’s the carburetor.  

He takes the rip cord in one hand and gives it a brisk yank—the motor stutters. Again, he pulls it, and the machine roars to life. Obedient, like a well-tamed beast.

Theodore’s strangled yelp of outrage satisfies the primal human vengeance he’s come to know as “pettiness.”

As the lawn mower idles, Theodore sets the scythe carelessly aside, dropped against the shed, and trudges through the tall grass toward it. He seizes it by the handle bar without sparing Todd a second glance even as he towers over him, still kneeling, thanks to the height of his spiraling horns.

Still, he doesn’t seem to know just how to operate the machine he snatched away. He pushes it forward, too rough—and jumps back with a start, cursing as the fresh-cut grass clippings pepper his navy-blue slacks in a rush of green.

But the beast has already been released, and as his fingers slip from the handlebar, it creeps its way forward without prompt and with surprising speed.

Straight into Granny Ethel’s beloved and flourishing lantanas.

Then right over them.

Both, speechless and stock still, stare at the vermillion whirl of shredded petals spit out in the lawn mower’s wake. Even as it bumps into the fence and tries to continue on, unaware—until it topples over and chokes itself out, blades whirring to a halt beneath its casing.

Just in time, too. In the distance, but not too far away, a car door slams shut. Swift and familiar, shuffling footsteps fast approach. The wooden side gate creaks open.

“We’re back at last, dears! I’m sure you’ve been working hard. Why don’t we take a break? I saw  _the_  most charming bakery on the way home and couldn’t help but—”

Something crashes against the cobblestone walkway. Soft—covered in a plastic bag. Bread. No, cinnamon buns. Todd can smell the sugary vanilla sweetness through the package. But he can’t quite turn to face Granny Ethel as a red hot glare fills his eyes, aimed only at Theodore.

But—no. It isn’t entirely the man’s fault.

It’s his, too, for playing a jealous, petty little game. Because he  _could_  have stopped the lawn mower and  _didn’t._

Sometimes, standing idly by is the worst sin of all.

Todd’s heart caves in as Granny Ethel breathes in and exhales, speechless, and presses her hands to her mouth when he turns to face her.

“Oh, my… The lantanas.”

Her eyes dart to the ruined mess of flowers and she takes a tiny step forward, over the fallen bag of sweet bread. Drops her hands from her mouth and holds them out in front of her as she ambles forward—and stops, a safe distance away from the destruction.

“Oh, my dudes, yikes,” Sam breathes, hissing in through his teeth and rubbing a brown hand across his frowning, pursed lips. “I, uh—I’ll go in and mix up some juice or something. You’ll need it.” He picks up the fallen bag of buns on the way. 

Todd’s shoulders hunch as he very nearly curls in on himself in shame, wrapping his shawl tight around himself—because the heat never bothered him and it’s  _his_  it’s  _special_  and it was a gift from  _her_  and, somewhere deep down, he vows to never disappoint her, to hurt her, in such a way again.  _Ever_.

Theodore, flushed deep red from neck to ears ever since his grandmother walked in, shuffles half-heartedly in front of the straight line of shredded lantanas, at least self-aware enough to realize he’d made a grave error. His hands knead roughly together, pale skin turning whiter from the pressure. Sweating, still, but not only from the summer heat.

“Gran, I…”

“Charles grew that patch for me.” Her soft poofs of cloud-white hair twist in the breeze as she closes her eyes and dips her head toward her chest, eyes closed. “Oh, they’ve been there ever since he planted them. Every single one.” She folds her hands in front of her loose, sunflower-yellow dress and shakes her head, saying no more on the subject.

“Oh my God. I’m so—Gran, I don’t… I didn’t mean to, it just… It wasn’t  _my_  fault!”

His frantic cry goes unheard by Granny Ethel as she stands with her head bowed in silence.

“There’s a silver lining, here, my dear.” When she looks up, her eyes shine behind her glasses, unshed tears catching sunlight, but her stare is hardened. And harsh.

Even with that small, tired smile, her fury is a cold-burning flame.

“You see, these particular flowers can live again. We will collect the undamaged stalks that are left and root them. Replant them. Then…” Her voice trails off into the silence of an unspoken thought. “For now, I’ll leave you two in peace to finish the yard work.”

Neither speaks a word, stuck in mortified silence, even as Granny Ethel disappears into the house.

The silence is only broken moments later when Sam makes his way back outside holding a tray filled with a glass pitched and three glasses, as well as a small pile of cookies. Peanut butter, of course.

But no sweet cinnamon buns.  

“Here’s that drink! Lavender lemonade with honey—and Granny’s special peanut cookies,” he smiles, trying his best to keep up a positive atmosphere as he sits cross-legged on the lawn with the fine silver tray in his lap. “She helped put it together, dudes, so don’t forget to thank her later.”

Theodore scoffs and grumbles out, “I’m allergic to peanuts,” but Todd knows that isn’t true. He’s seen entire containers of peanut butter disappear overnight, at times. And Granny Ethel simply wouldn’t do something that selfish, so he’s the only suspect.

But if the man is going to be  _that_  way about it, then all the more treats for him and Sam. He drains one of the glasses in a single gulp and devours two of the delicious, crispy cookies, nodding in appreciation. Because it’s what Granny Ethel would want—and he’d rather die than let her hospitality go to waste. Her happiness always comes first.

He hopes she’s not crying.

“She’s busy crocheting something in the den, by the way. Humming, and everything. Boy, am I glad she’s not mad.” Sam also eats a cookie and speaks around the crunchy bits in his mouth, providing him with just the answer he sought. “But, man, that’s some gnarly garden carnage, there.” He nods his head toward the lantanas and whistles low. “Did you apologize?”

“ _Why_  would I?” Theodore snaps, arms crossed tight as he refuses to look at the flowers and their faces, still evident in his guilt by the way he answers so quickly. When no one gives him an immediate response, he breathes a theatrical sigh and clomps toward the fallen path of ruined flowers. Hands on his hips, now, he observes the mess. “Is  _any_  of this even salvageable? None of the stems look un-shredded!”

“You should apologize,” Sam insists lightly, taking another cookie when he finishes the first. He meets Todd’s eyes and they share a knowing glance. Then, his brown eyes light up. “Oh—and by the way, Granny’s appointment went great! She’s fit as a fiddle.”

By now, Theodore is squatting amongst the flower shreds, combing through the mess for anything that looks particularly helpful and root-able. “Of  _course_  she is. Her energy knows no bounds.”

Todd can only nod. Granny Ethel’s health is nigh infallible. But—that aside, it’s time to return to work. He finishes his cookies, brushes the crumbs off his palms and carefully makes his way to the flower patch to pick out the lantana stems they can still save.  

There are few—but a few is better than none. And for the rest, they can grow from the seeds.

It will take some time to return Granny’s beloved lantana garden to its former glory, but not forever. And before they know it, this day will be nothing more than a mistake of the past.  

So, they continue their yard work until the day’s chore is done.

The remaining lantanas: neat. The lawn: trimmed. The herb garden: weeded and pruned.

When the tools have been returned to their proper place, they leave the yard behind, and Todd gives one final, sweeping glance around the space as he slides the back door shut.

Something is out of place. He can’t quite pin down what, but later, when he curls up in his small twin bed and drifts to sleep in the room he shares with Theodore, he dreams of a rusted scythe that he can’t quite remember putting away—one that he promptly forgets when he wakes.


End file.
